


9 Months Too Many

by PoeBear (MajorMinor)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Comics - Fandom, The Avengers, Young Avengers
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, High School, High School AU, M/M, Some domestic avengers, Teacher AU, Teaching, The Avengers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 17:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 64,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4187832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorMinor/pseuds/PoeBear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has been teaching at Xavier's Memorial High School for seven years now, and is used to the hustle and flow of co-workers and students alike. It's only until two new teachers show up that that flow is suddenly thrown out of order. While everyone knows that they're only their to do their job, it's not long before the new arrivals origins are questioned by teachers and students alike.<br/>This story shifts from the point of view of teachers and students and includes flashbacks to multiple events that have had some effect on the current year at Xavier's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back to the Mines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint has been teaching at Xavier's Memorial High School for seven years now, and is used to the hustle and flow of co-workers and students alike. It's only until two new teachers show up that that flow is suddenly thrown out of order. While everyone knows that they're only their to do their job, it's not long before the new arrivals origins are questioned by teachers and students alike.  
> This story shifts from the point of view of teachers and students and includes flashbacks to multiple events that have had some effect on the current year at Xavier's.

Heat radiated from the parking lot pavement, making the few cars parked there look as if they were draped in saran wrap. Clint groaned and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. The boxes he held under each arm were starting to slip as his hands became sweatier. “How can something meant to cool you off make you feel so gross?” he muttered. The sun was beating down against his neck, making his skin as hot as his frustration was growing.

It was the first day of work for teachers at Xavier's Memorial High School, and Clint's day was already off to a bad start. It wasn't that he had a problem waking up at seven in the morning during August, he had to get used to waking up that early again at some point, so he welcomed the early mornings back like an old friend. He did however have a problem with waking up at seven in the morning during a heat wave, driving to work in a car with no air conditioning, only to arrive at work to realize that he'd left his keys at home leaving him stranded outside the back entrance in the early morning heat. It didn't help that his neighbors had spent the previous night exploring the various adventures a couple can have with bondage. He had hardly gotten a wink of sleep and desperately needed to grab a cup of coffee and hopefully there would be some sugary sweets donated by the PTA waiting for him in the teacher's lounge.

“It should be a sin to be eighty-nine degrees this early.” Clint huffed as he tried to wipe his hands on his pants leg. He nearly dropped the box in his right arm, so instead he groaned and readjusted his grip.

He kicked at the door with his toe again, hoping that someone would hear him and come to unlock the door. Just when he was about to call it quits and walk around to the side of the building in hopes that the lock on the art room window was still broken, he heard the door unlocking from the other side. He sighed in relief when the door opened, revealing his curly haired savior, AP physics teacher Bruce Banner.

“Did you go for a swim before you got here?” Bruce laughed when he saw Clint. Despite the fact that Clint was wearing khaki shorts and a t-shirt, he was still soaked to the bone in sweat. “You try driving fifteen miles with no ac during a heat wave.” Clint retorted. Bruce held the door open wider for Clint to step in. He was grateful when the air conditioning washed over him, even if it was room temperature public school air conditioning. Bruce pulled the door shut behind him, sealing in the stuffy building that the pair would be spending the next nine months in.

“Don't tell me you left your keys again.” Bruce started, “This'll make a three year streak.” Clint rolled his eyes. “I was up late trying to get all this,” he nodded at each of the boxes tucked under his arms, “together and forgot to grab my keys on the way out the door.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Why didn't you just call someone to come unlock the door? Or did you leave your phone at home too?”

Clint nearly dropped his boxes in frustration. He and Bruce had quickly become friends when Clint started working at Xavier's Memorial six years ago. He was never sure whether he should be grateful or embarrassed that Bruce was always pointing out the obvious to him. “I would lose my head if it wasn't screwed onto my neck. What would I do without you Sherlock?” he said mockingly. “Well Watson, after the Sanitizer Incident, I don't know if anyone would be surprised if you forgot anything.” Bruce laughed.

Clint shuddered at the memory. All that sanitizer....the hairy, sanitizer covered baseball coach chasing after him....the burning in the paper cut on his palm. It was an accident that no one would let him live down until retirement. “I thought we agreed to never talk about that again.” he said.

“Just didn't want you to forget too soon. Heaven knows none of the students are gonna let you live it down. Or Darcy.” Bruce replied. Clint rolled his eyes. “Did Tony make a pot of coffee?” he asked, trying to push past the subject. “I need something to wake me up after the morning I've had. I was hoping to get my fill before Steve got here.” Steve Rogers was an English teacher at Xavier's Memorial, and a good friend of Clint's. But if there was one thing that everyone, students included, knew about him, was that he had an intervention worthy addiction to coffee. More specifically, Tony's dark roast.

Bruce shook his head. “I didn't see his car when I pulled up, and I got here about fifteen minutes ago. That's where I was headed anyway until I heard you kicking the door. I'm surprised no one else heard you though, sounded like a cannon going off.”

They started down the back hallway, turning to the left when they reached the end of the corridor. A few of the classes were already unlocked, but based on the lack of music coming out of them, Clint figured it was just the elderly janitor, Stan, doing one final round of clean up before the teachers began to come in for the day.  
One of the class rooms on the farthest end of the hall, leading towards the front halls of the school, was alive with activity. Based on the smell of coffee drifting down the hall and the AC/DC blasting from the speakers, it had to be no one other than Statistics teacher, Tony Stark.

Clint's mouth watered as the scent of coffee hit his nostrils. He quickened his pace, eager to take advantage of Tony's super expensive Keurig machine. Sure most of the other teachers had coffee makers of their own, but none of them could compare to Tony's. When the two men appeared in the doorway, Bruce called for Tony over the chorus of 'Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution' to get the teacher's attention. Tony turned around from the bulletin board where he was stapling the new standards and grinned at both of them. He put his stapler and papers down and paused the music on his computer before striding over to the doorway and pulling Bruce and Clint into a hug.

“When did you get so touchy?” Clint asked when Tony released him. Tony looked down at his wristwatch. “Uh, about two hours ago.” Clint and Bruce raised an eyebrow. “I downed six five hour energies. It's not going as well as I had hoped it would be.” Tony explained. “My bladder feels like it's filled with battery acid, I've pissed six times and I'm pretty sure I could go toe to toe with Floyd Mayweather and win.”

“Well it sounds like we're both off to bad starts.” Clint laughed.

“I'm not sure if you can top pissing batter acid, but humor me, I need something to distract me before I do laps around the entire school.” Tony gestured towards the coffee pot sitting on the bookshelf behind his desk. Clint moved past him, setting his boxes down on a nearby desk before joining Bruce and Tony at the bookshelf. Tony poured the both of them Styrofoam cups filled to the brim. No sane person would dare to drink such a hot beverage during a heatwave, but being a public school teacher made one addicted to it. Some even argued that Clint and Steve ran neck and neck for most coffee consumed in a year.

“Feeling generous today Stark?” Bruce asked as he took a sip. Tony shook his head. “I just needed to get rid of this as fast as I could before I started chugging it. I am however generous enough to offer some deodorant though.” he pointed a finger at the sweat stains on Clint's armpits. “What happen? Land lord shut off you ac?” Clint ignored him and took another sip. Bruce answered for him. “Bird brain here left his keys at home and didn't think to call anyone to let him.” Tony tried to stifle a laugh. “Get so caught up in the Battle of the Bulge that we have a heat wave coming our way?”

“I can't tell if Battle of the Bulge was supposed to be an innuendo or not, but no. My neighbors could tell you a thing or two about bulges though.” Tony shuddered. “Christ on a bike, all night?” he asked.

Clint nodded. “I've been around the block a few times, but those two were doing things that would make your greasy hair curl Stark.”

“Hey, it's not greasy, I just use a lot of product.” Tony defended. “But you should introduce me to them sometime. We might hit it off.” he joked.

“No problem. Not sure how you feel about three-way bondage though.”

Tony let out a laugh so loud that Stan, who had been walking past the open door, stopped and looked inside. “Sorry Stan. Didn't mean to startle you.” Bruce apologized. Stan shook his head and muttered something that sounded a lot like 'caffeine filled hooligans' before hobbling down the hall with his cleaning cart. When he was out of view, Tony lowered his voice to a whisper. “How have they not forced him into retirement yet?” Bruce and Clint shrugged. Stan had been there longer than any of the current teachers, and no one was exactly sure how long he had even been there. Rumor had it that Stan had millions of dollars in a savings account and was waiting to be forced into retirement before putting his hands on any of it. Regardless, Stan was one of the many unexplained mysteries at Xavier's.

“Anyway,” Tony continued, “I guess it'd be better to be kept up by your neighbors going to town than reliving the Great Germ X Spill in your dreams.” Clint nearly choked on his coffee. “Is that what they're calling it now?” he shouted. The corners of Tony's lips turned upward. “Don't blame me, Darcy's the one who comes up with all the good nicknames.”

Darcy Lewis, the school's eclectic theater teacher, was nice enough, but god forbid you ever do anything embarrassing while she was around. If the students wouldn't let Clint forget the events of last year, Darcy would make sure it was engraved into his memory like a tattoo. Clint groaned. “Remind me to tell my freshmen about the time she did a one woman version of 'Into The Woods'. They'll eat that shit up.” The other two men laughed.

Bruce crumpled up his cup and tossed it into the trash bin. “Well, I still need to organize my bookshelf. I think I have a combination that'll stump everyone this year.”

Bruce had an impressive collection of books in his classroom. Even though he taught physics, his bookshelf ranged from Carl Sagan science journals to Batman comics and Game of Thrones. Each year, he would hold a yearlong contest by rearranging his shelf in a different order and see how long it took students to guess how he'd done it. So far he'd organized his books by color, publishing date, alphabetical order and number of character deaths. Last year, a freshman was able to guess that Bruce had organized the books by place on the bestsellers list by the week before Winter Break, making him the youngest and quickest winner so far. The prize for guessing correctly was a free quiz grade or homework pass (although some students would try to haggle for both) and a twenty dollar gift card to their favorite store. 

Teachers would try to get in on the contest too in the hopes that they too could get a gift card or perhaps a round of drinks from the bar most frequented by Xavier's staff, Yesterday's. But the physics teacher would always shake his head and say “You know the rules, students only.” 

“Wouldn't mind dropping any hints for me would you?” Tony wiggled an eyebrow. “I could really use a one hundred quiz grade to start off my year.” Bruce knew he was only joking, but he still shook a finger in Tony's face and said, “You know the rules Stark,” 

“Students only.” Tony and Clint finished in unison. Bruce rolled his eyes and started towards the door. “I'll see you all at the faculty meeting.” the two remaining men waved at him as he walked out of the doorway and out of sight.

Clint tossed back the last drops of coffee and dropped the empty cup into the trash. “I should get going too. God knows I need to get a spare set of keys and get something done while I'm still caffeinated.” He walked around Tony's desk and grabbed his boxes off the desk he'd left them on.

“If you need a refill you know where to find me.” Tony called behind him as he walked out the door. When Clint was clear out of the room, AC/DC filled the classroom and empty hallway again. Clint could just make out the voices of the biology teacher, Peter Parker and his best work buddy, Miles Morales, a second year American Literature teacher, chatting it up down the hall. As he walked towards the front of the school, he said quick greetings to the few teachers that passed him with mugs in hand. No doubt they were rushing to get to Tony's room before Steve came and took his share.

The floor tiles transitioned from the standard issue white to the dark gray of the school's foyer. The tiles met in the center of the foyer to form a giant green and yellow phoenix, the mascot of Xavier's Memorial. Whoever thought that green and yellow was a good combination for the mythical bird of rebirth and immortality must have been colorblind. Almost every new teacher that came into the school on their first day for a tour would make comment on the poor color coordination and try to get it changed. Clint remembered everyone telling him that it was a lost cause when he brought it up during a faculty meeting when he first started working as the history teacher. The closest anyone had ever gotten to having it changed was last year when Miles Morales made a petition and had gotten all of the faculty and more than half of the students to sign it. Much to everyone's dismay, the petition fell through when the previous superintendent retired and his successor turned it down. Everyone now referred to the petition as 'The Failed Order of the Phoenix', after Tony's teacher intern had coined the nickname. Clint had tried to reassure Miles by telling him that everyone had at least one crazy event tucked into their belts after working at Xavier's. He proved himself right by causing the chaotic events of Canada vs the Barton Sanitizer Company a week after Spring Break.

Clint walked past the hideous parrot colored phoenix and pushed the door to the front office open. As if his adventures in the heat not even twenty minutes before had been bad enough, he was greeted by a blast of heat and the whir of an electric fan when he entered the room. He wanted to drop to his knees and cry out about the heat, but pushed the door open wider and walked into the stuffy room. At the front desk, School Resource officer, Maria Hill, had her bare feet propped up on the desk and was fanning herself with a GQ magazine. Clint dropped the boxes down in front of her, startling her to attention.

“Why does it feel like Satan's asshole blew out in here?” he asked. He picked up a stray pamphlet on the desk and fanned himself with it. Maria groaned and went back to fanning herself with the magazine. “I'm not gonna ask how you even came up with that one.” she said. “There's something blocking the vents and Stan's too old to fix it. We have to wait till tomorrow for someone to come and fix it.” She sat up in her chair. “Anyway, what can I do for you Barton? I'll put a rush on it if you you can get me a Sonic slushie in the next ten minutes."

“I don't know if I can get it that fast, but I'll work on it. But I do need a spare key for my room.” he said. Maria let out a short laugh. “Three year streak, that's impressive. Lucky for you, I know how forgetful you are, so I already put a spare in your mailbox when I got here.”

“Thanks Maria.” he replied. “No problem. Oh, there's some doughnuts in there mail room if you wanna take one.” she said as he was about to round the corner leading to the back of the office.

“Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme?” he asked.  “Dunkin variety dozen.” she replied. “If they have a cheesecake one in there, I'll forgive them for their poor choice in baked goods.” he joked.

The heat followed him from the front as he walked past the various counselors offices. It was a tad bit cooler in the mail room, but not enough to make much of a difference. He walked over to the wall of mail slots and just as expected, there was a brass key sitting on top of the envelop. Clint picked up the key and stuffed it into his pocket, praying that it would make it from the office to his room on the second floor. He grabbed the envelope, which was the standard 'Welcome To Another Great Year!' letter from the superintendent and a doughnut (they had cheesecake after all, all was forgiven), eating it quickly before returning to the front of the office. 

Just as he was about to leave, he noticed a rolling chair resting by the doorway. It was the ugliest shade of green imaginable, the stuffing in the seat had been torn out and there was a leg missing. The battered chair was known by all the teachers and had been at the school just about as long as Stan. No one was sure how the poor chair had come to such a fate for it to lose its stuffing and a leg, but they kept it around for sentimental reasons. Some long retired teacher years before had affectionately nicknamed it Tito, and the name stuck.

Clint remembered his boxes at the front desk and decided to put Tito to good use. He grabbed Tito by the back and half rolled, half dragged the chair back to the front. The wheels rattled loudly, causing Maria to turn around and look at him as he dragged Tito around the front of the desk. “Taking Tito for a stroll?” she asked. “I didn't feel like carrying those books any further. If I had to carry them up two flights of stairs, I'd slip a disc.” he replied as he placed the boxes onto the chair.

“And you think balancing them on a rickety rolling chair up the stairs is going to make that any easier?” Clint was tempted to give himself the 'should have had a V8' face-palm, but ignored the comment. His morning was off to a bad enough start and he didn't want to let Maria have the satisfaction of correcting him. “I'll see you at the faculty meeting.” he said before turning and pushing Tito out the door.

“Hey Barton,” Maria called behind him, “if you're serious about that slushie, make sure you take someone with steady hands to carry it for you. I don't want any Purell tainting my pina colada.” Clint gave her a bird that was nowhere near as graceful or poorly colored as their school's mascot and walked out the door.

* * *

 

By the time Clint reached the second floor landing, he was winded. He wished that he hadn't been so stubborn and just carried the boxes up the stairs like Maria had suggested. As if his morning weren't bad enough already, the moment he stepped out of the staircase, goosebumps shot up his arms and legs. Compared to the office, the second floor was an ice box, Clint took it as a sign that some unseen force was on his side or that Stan was hoping to be forced into retirement. He swore under his breath for not bringing a jacket as he pushed Tito down the hall.

When he reached room 232, he let out a sigh of relief. He took the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, opening it to the oh so familiar room that he had taught in for six years. None of the other teachers would admit it to each other, but they all had some pride in the way they arranged their classrooms. Clint smiled at the five rows of desks that filled the four dull gray walls that were covered in motivational posters, timelines of historical events and a few of his favorite projects from previous students. He gave Tito one final shove through the doorway and walked over to his desk and sat in his own rolling chair, that was in much fairer condition. Every part of the classroom was like a tiny piece of home for him. Even the desk that had somehow survived 'Apple Flavored Soda' two years prior was a welcomed sight. He was now a prisoner to this classroom for the next nine months, but he didn't mind, it was like a second home to him.

Clint reclined back in his chair, enjoying the moments of peace on the second floor. The moment didn't last long though. Just as he was reaching to plug his phone into the speakers, a loud crash came from down the hall, followed by what sounded like porcelain smashing against the floor. The commotion was followed by a string of Russian swears.

“Natasha...” Clint muttered. He got up from his chair and paced quickly three doors down to the source of the sounds. He was right in thinking that the feisty red headed foreign language teacher was responsible for the swears, he wasn't however expecting the second person he saw to be there.

Natasha was standing towards the back of the classroom, still shouting swears at a young man with a shaved head standing on a step ladder near the bookshelf, or at least where it used to be. Somehow, the entire bookshelf had been sent to the floor, sending books and two of the vases that Natasha kept in her room scattered across the floor. The young man had thrown his hands over his ears and was loudly singing the chorus to 'I Want Candy' in an attempt to drown her out.

“Wade you idiot!” Natasha broke her Russian. “I told you to be careful! You better fucking pay for this or else I'm gonna shove a cactus up your-”

“Hey!” Clint shouted over the bickering adults. “What the hell is going on here?” Natasha and Wade both turned to look at him. While Natasha's glare transferred from Wade to Clint, Wade was grinning like a kid in a candy shop.

“Finally,” he started, “a third party to come and evaluate this situation.” Wade jumped down off the step ladder and waltzed towards Clint. “Tell her that all I was trying to do was help.”

Clint looked from Wade to Natasha. The red head shook her head. “Just get Fix It Felix out of here before I start the year of with a fight.”  
“Wade, you should probably leave.” Clint said, trying to mediate the situation. “Whatever man, just tell her next time to not ask for my help.” Wade started, “Oh, and uh, be careful. She's cranky and I don't think she's been down to Stark-bucks yet.”

Wade Wilson was an interesting person to say the least. He was a permanent substitute at Xavier's, although most teachers would avoid letting him watch their classes at all costs. Since no one in their right mind would willingly let Wade substitute for their class, he usually hung out in the teacher lounge room doing god-knows-what or with Darcy and Peter whenever either of them didn't have a class.

Students found him just as annoying as the teachers did, often referring to him as 'Joker's inbred brother'. It was a crude title that teachers tried to stamp out and would reprimand students on moral fiber if they ever caught them saying it. Although they would call out students on the cruel name, some of the teachers referred to him as that too whenever no one with high standards (usually Bruce) was around. Wade thankfully, had no idea of the title and everyone prayed that he would never find out.  
Clint had never used the title, but he did however, have an interesting history with the substitute.

During his first year at Xavier's, Clint had been out with a sudden case of the flu and Wade was there to offer his assistance. For whatever reason, he was convinced that along with being the school's permanent substitute, that he was also an impromptu handy man (but everyone knew that he had graduated from Xavier's eight years prior and flunked out of the community college). He somehow fixed Clint's projector with a paper clip and electrical tape and would always refer to the incident whenever he really wanted to substitute for someone's class. Two years ago when Clint had gotten rear ended on his way to work, Wade was there yet again and had somehow managed to spill an entire two liter bottle of Fanta onto the Mac Book Pro, that had been donated to Clint's classroom, causing an electrical fire, thus resulting in the events of 'Apple Flavored Soda'. Of the few people at Xavier's that Clint didn't like, Wade had been sitting at the top of that list since the accident.

Wade winked at Clint and nudged past him and walked out into the hallway, continuing to sing 'I Want Candy' as he went. Clint looked back at Natasha, who looked just as annoyed as Clint. “I'm assuming that you didn't actually ask him for help.” he said.

“Of course not. The day I ask that idiot for help is the day Fury grows his eye back.” Natasha scoffed. She bent over to pick up the shards of the vases on the floor. “If this doesn't get him the boot, then I don't know what will. It's some act of black magic that they kept him around after the desk fire.”

“Well, it's good to know that all my friends are having a bad start to the day. First it was me, then Tony and Maria, but now you've managed to make it to the top of the bad day list. Congrats.” he joked. “What's up with Tony and Maria?” she asked.

“He drank six five hour energies and claims to have pissed battery acid. The ac is out in the office and Stan's too old to fix it himself.”

Natasha let out a short laugh. “I hope Stark's got enough corn starch to last him a few weeks.” she walked over to the trash bin by her desk and dropped the shattered pieces of vase into the trash can. She let out a heavy sigh and dropped down into the chair behind her desk.

“It's rude to stand in doorways you know.” she told him. Clint walked across the room and sat down in a desk right in front of her. “So,” Natasha started, “How is your morning going so far? You always have a habit for getting into trouble.”

“First of all, I don't get into trouble, I'm just prone to bad luck.” Clint defended. Natasha's lips curled with a humorless smile. “Whatever Barton, just start talking. I need something to keep my mind off of going after Wade.”

Clint started from the night before when he'd heard his neighbors adventures in bondage, going on to driving in the sweltering heat and being stranded outside before ending on the string of sanitizer related jokes all within twenty minutes. Compared to his previous start of the year fiascoes, this one was no where as interesting as the others.

“Well think of it this way,” Natasha started, “at least you don't have to go find someone to help you pick up a bookshelf.”

“That's true.” Clint nodded. “What the hell was Wade doing in here anyways? You can barely stand to think about him, let alone let him into your room.” Natasha let out a long sigh and threw back her head. “That idiot swears up and down that he's some magic handy man or something. He waltzed in here with that stupid grin on his face and kept asking if I needed any help. He wouldn't go away and he grabbed my vases while I wasn't looking to put them on top of the shelf and somehow knocked the whole thing over.”

“I'm sorry about that. The vases weren't expensive were they?” Clint asked.

“Hell no. I got 'em at World Market for like fifteen dollars.” Natasha said. Clint shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe all this is karma for slapping him in the middle of class last year.”

“In my defense, he was telling my students pick up lines in Icelandic.” she explained. “And it had something to do with horses, and I do not condone any type of bestiality in my classroom.”

“Maybe he got it from Thor.” Clint suggested referring to the burly blonde gym teacher. All of the teachers called him 'Thunder Head' as a joke about how much he resembled almost every god of the sky or thunder in any form of mythology.

“Oh please. For starters, Thunder Head is Norwegian. Besides, I don't even think he knows a lick of Icelandic. The alphabet doesn't even have the letter 'c' in it.”

Clint bit his lip, trying to hold back the pun that he had in response to her comment. Natasha took notice of his expression. “What are you thinking?” she asked. “I have a bad pun and I know you're gonna hate me for it.” he said. “Just say it. You can't be any worse than what I had to put up with Phil this summer.” Natasha sighed.

“Well, I was gonna saw that maybe they used all the C’s to see all the volcanoes there."

Natasha tried to bite back her smile, but the corners of her lips turned upward until she started laughing. Clint followed her up and they were both laughing like kids in the middle of the wreckage Wade had left behind.

If there was one thing that Clint loved more than being back with his friends again after summer break, it was having a room right next to Natasha's. He and Natasha had met nearly ten years earlier at a week long seminar for graduate students interested in teaching high school. They'd been paired up for a group research project about late childhood development for the grand prize of paid off student loans. Unfortunately, neither of them won, but they hung together for the rest of the seminar, bonding like old friends even though they'd known each other for a few days. At the end of the week, both of them had gone their separate ways, but they still kept in touch.

A year after the seminar, while Clint was working at a private school, Natasha got a job teaching ballet at a dance school in the same city. They both decided to be roommates to save money on both ends. They lived together for three years until Natasha got the job as foreign language teacher at Xavier's, moving four hours away. Despite the distance, they still managed to get together whenever time would allow them and swap stories about the various mishaps at their schools. Natasha would always have better stories to share, but what else would be expected when working with people like Tony and Wade. In fact, it was Natasha who referenced Clint for the opening for history teacher when the previous one at Xavier's had retired and Clint had been laid off from the private school. With her help, he got the job and helped him navigate the insanity that he had now grown so accustomed to.

“I'm considering whether or not to end our friendship because of that one.” Natasha said, grabbing at a stitch in her side.

“Maria would have punched me for that one.” Clint replied. “I was about to punch you! I spent all of July with Phil at that stupid teacher's summit and he never said a pun that bad.” Natasha stood up from her chair and walked to the front of the desk “Just be lucky that my day can't get any worse.”

Clint threw up his hands. “I wouldn't say anything just yet. Beginning of the year is always a mess for everyone.” She looked over at the bookshelf wreckage and sighed. “I need to go find someone who can help me clean all this up.”

“I'll help you if you want.” He offered. Natasha shook a finger in his face. “Oh no. No more random acts of kindness. Look what happened the last time someone decided to play Mr. Fix It. Besides, you need to try to get something done before the faculty meeting.” Clint let out a groan. “I don't wanna.”

“Quit your whining and get to it.” she pushed him out the door and they both stood in the hallway. “Go be productive and all that jazz. I'll see you later.” she turned and headed towards the staircase that exited into the gym area, leaving Clint alone in the hallway. He sighed and walked back down to his own classroom.

Everything in the room was in the exact same position that he'd left it in two months ago on the last day of school. The only thing he needed to do was make copies of syllabuses for the three courses he taught and whatever work that always managed to magically pop up during the start of the year. He took his phone out of his pocket and plugged it into the speaker system, laughing when 'Eye of the Tiger' started playing.

“Alright Barton.” he said to himself, “let's make some shit happen.”

* * *

 

When the faculty meeting finally rolled around, Clint's cup of coffee felt long gone. It was a quarter to eleven and Clint felt as if he had worked night shifts three nights in a row (although with his neighbors, he'd only gotten about three hours of sleep the night before). He sat in the library at a table with Natasha and Bruce, waiting for the meeting to start. The library was quickly filling with teachers and other staff that either looked just as tired as Clint or were unnaturally energized.

While Natasha and Bruce were sharing stories about what they had done over the summer, Clint was struggling to keep his head off the table. “Need another trip down to Stark-bucks?” Bruce asked. “I just wanna eat and go home. I don' know how I'm gonna make it through the rest of the day and Stark's tonight without a nap.” Clint groaned.

Each year, Tony would hold a back-to-school barbeque. It was a great way to get one last bit of vacation in before having to deal with freshmen orientation and the seniors who thought they were too good to listen to simple school rules. Tony would always make sure that everyone that could go, would go. The only way to get out would to be deathly ill or have kids, and since Clint had neither tuberculosis or children, he considered stealing the rest of Tony's energy drinks to make it through the rest of the day.

Clint's stomach growled, begging him for something other than a cup of coffee and a few skittles he found in his desk drawer. Almost as if responding to Clint's stomach, Bruce spoke up. “I wish Fury'd hurry up and start. I need some lunch or else I'm gonna pass out.”

“Better not let Fury hear you or else he'll knock your lights out for you.” Natasha smirked.

Principal Nick Fury was liked well enough by teachers and students alike. Under his leadership, Xavier's Memorial quickly made its way to being one of the best schools in the state. No one would dare question his authority, but the man did not know how to stop talking. Whether it be staff meetings, morning announcements or an assembly, Fury would go on and on with no end in sight. Usually, Phil Coulson, the personal finance teacher, or assistant principal Jasper Sitwell, would have to throw in a bad pun or send out group texts while Fury wasn't paying attention to get everyone to stay awake. Some teachers would even place bets on how long he'd go on during faculty meetings. So far the running record was one hour and fifty-three minutes.

God forbid you fell asleep during a meeting. During the final meeting of last school year, Scott Summers hadn't had his eyes closed for a whole ten seconds before Fury was shouting for his attention. Clint's morning had already been going bad enough and he'd prefer to not have his boss shouting at him.

“Miles should start a petition to get Pepper to allow food back in here.” Bruce complained. “I heard that the PTO got Jimmy Johns catered and I wouldn't mind a sub right about now.” Clint's stomach grumbled as the thought of food popped into his head.

The librarian, Pepper Potts, was as sweet and friendly as anyone could humanly be. Clint liked her, everyone liked her, but she was a stickler when it came to food in the library. She had even banned the engineering teacher, Bucky Barnes, for a whole semester when he accidentally spilled his bag of powdered doughnuts in the autobiography section a few years earlier. No one, not even Principal Fury himself, would dare go up against Pepper and her ban on food or drinks.

“I'm pretty sure it'd take an army to get her to budge.” Clint said, “I don't really blame her though, I heard the librarian before her just let things go to hell and the carpet was a mess.”

Bruce turned his attention back to Natasha. “I heard through the grapevine that you had a bit of an accident with Wade earlier.”

“Jeez that kid has a big mouth. Who else has he told?” she asked.

“Well, I heard about what happened from Gwen, but I did actually hear your entire shelf fall over. My classroom is right under yours remember?” Natasha groaned loudly enough to cause the conversations in the library to cease for a split second.“Ugh. I just hope he gets fired this time. If he doesn't then I swear I'm as unlucky as bird brain.” she jabbed a finger into Clint's temple. He waved her hand away and picked his head up from the table.

“I'd much rather deal with my crazy neighbors than crazy co-workers.” he said through a yawn.

“Yeah man, I bet we give your neighbors a run for their money.” the trio whipped around and saw no one other than Darcy waltzing towards them. She pulled up an extra chair and scooted next to Bruce. “So, how was your summer doc?” she smiled sweetly. “I heard that you had quite an interesting vacation in Johannesburg.”

Anyone who knew her well enough knew that Darcy would always be the first person to question Bruce on his bookshelf. Bruce never had the heart to tell her off as many of his co-workers had suggested every year whenever she would try new ways to bribe him into spilling the beans on the order of his bookshelf.

“Darcy, I know what you're up to.” he said. Darcy looked taken aback, “Is it so awful that I want to inquire about my friend's summer vacation?” she asked. “No. But you know the rules, students only.” he said.

“I was a student here just a few years ago.”

“Ten years isn't a few years Darcy.” Clint interrupted. “Hey, ten years ago, you two were just starting to be best buds.” she wagged a finger between Clint and Natasha. “And I was crossing the threshold of this lovely facility to start my senior year.”

“You can't call yourself a student anymore Darcy.” Bruce said.

“What if I went back to school and got my masters degree?” If there was one thing no one could deny about Darcy, it was that she was persistent over anything else. Put a boulder in her path and she'd keep headbutting it until it breaks or rolls away.

Bruce sighed. “Why don't you get me your mom's tater tot casserole recipe and then we'll talk.” A smile spread across Darcy's face. She stood and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I think that could be arranged. I can smell an Ulta gift card in my future.” she sauntered off back into the crowd of teachers.

“Nice work doc.” Natasha laughed. “Only problem is, I thought you hated Marsha's cooking.”

“Hate is a strong word. I just needed something to keep her off my tail for a while.” Bruce confessed.

“She does make some nice bean dip though.” Clint said. The two adults nodded in agreement and they continued to talk about the ups and downs of Marsha Lewis' cooking.

When the hour hand on the clock hit eleven, Principal Fury walked into the library, followed by Jasper. He stood in front of the circulations desk and as he opened his mouth to begin the meeting, several of the teachers set stop watches and wagers on the length of the meeting.

“I hope all of you have had an interesting summer. I know some of you have had an interesting morning already and it's only the first day back.” Fury's one good eye scanned the crowd until it landed on Wade sitting with Darcy and Peter in the non-fiction section. Wade gave a thumbs up almost as if owning up to the fact that he destroyed a piece of school property and a teacher's personal belongings.

Fury made no change in expression or tone at Wade's gesture,“But let's hope that we can all make it through the rest of the day, and the year, without damaging anymore property.”

“Or loosing an eye.” Clint heard Tony mutter in the graphic novel section. Clint turned in his seat and saw Tony standing with Steve and Sam Wilson, the school's guidance counselor. He mouthed a quick 'shut up' at the math teacher and turned back around before Fury could notice.

Just like Stan and Tito, no one knew all of Fury's history. The most that Clint had ever managed out of anyone was that he was a retired Marine who had showed up eighteen years ago after the last principal had gone off the map. But despite his eye patch and sketchy past, Fury was pretty open with students and the staff, if they could ever work up the courage to talk to him about anything that wasn't work related.

The meeting rolled forward at a brain numbingly slow pace. It was a miracle that no one managed to fall asleep or resort to their phones for rescue from the boredom. Clint had only managed to not fall asleep by playing a game of 'I Spy' in his head. Just as he was about to spy who had gotten a bad haircut over the summer, Fury's voice grew in volume, breaking him out of his game. Clint was worried that Fury had caught him not paying attention, but it was just him adjourning the meeting. It had ended with a record setting time of thirty-six minutes, putting it above the shortest time previously set at forty minutes flat.

“There's Jimmy John's down in the cafeteria!” Fury called as the staff rushed towards the door. “And for those of you going to Stark's tonight, I still want you all here bright eyed and bushy tailed for freshmen orientation tomorrow by eight!”

Clint stood and stretched, letting out a long yawn as he did. Bruce and Natasha looked just as thankful as everyone else that the meeting was over and that they could now indulge in free food. “I'm gonna go talk to Phil real quick.” Natasha said. “You spent all of July with him, that eager to hang out with him some more?” Bruce smirked.

“Unlike you Banner, I actually have more than a handful of friends.” she retorted. There was too much sarcasm behind the remark for it to be taken seriously.  
Bruce let out a short laugh. “We hang out with the same people at work.”

“You got me there. But I actually do need to go talk to him about something. I'll catch up with you guys downstairs.” she hurried over towards the exit of the library where Phil could be seen talking to another teacher.

“I'm gonna go save us a table before things get too crazy down there.” Bruce said.  
“The crazy don't start until I get there.” Tony called out from across the library. God only knows how he heard them. Bruce rolled his eyes. “You gonna come with me or did you bring your own lunch?”

“Even if I did, there's no way in hell I'd pass up free Jimmy Johns. But you can go ahead, I need to go get my phone out of my room.” Clint said. Bruce nodded and walked off in Tony's direction. Clint stretched again and just as he was about to head out the door, someone spoke up behind him. “You know, I thought you would have a better start to the year, but I can see that didn't go so well based on what I've been hearing.” Clint turned and saw Steve standing behind him. “Of all the people, I was hoping that you would let up on the jokes about how awful my first days go.”Clint said.

“Well it's not the first day yet, gotta make it another three days before all the good stuff actually happens.” Steve laughed. Clint rolled his eyes and started towards the library exit. “Were you gonna go downstairs or no?” Steve asked, walking quickly to catch up to him.

“Yeah, but I left my phone on the charger in my room. I was gonna go get it first.” he explained. He held the door open for Steve to step out before him and they started down the hallway to Clint's classroom.  
“So I'm assuming that someone has filled you in on my adventures this morning.” Clint said. Steve nodded. “Doesn't take long for gossip to get passed around here. We do work with Tony and Darcy after all. Don't worry, I'm not here to pick on you, just wanted to talk and all. I mean, we haven't seen each other in almost three months. How was your summer?”

That was one of the many good things about Steve, he was the one friend who wouldn't talk about how bad you had fucked up (although he did throw out an unholy amount of sanitizer jokes up until graduation last year, but in his defense, everyone did).

“It was uneventful.” Clint answered as they approached his door. Thankfully, he hadn't left his keys in the room. He unlocked the door and grabbed his phone from its spot on the desk where he'd left it plugged up to the computer. School rules often forbid teachers from using the computers to charge other electronics because of how old they were, but Clint figured no one would get on his case on the first day back to work.

“You know me. Never really been much of a beach trip and Disneyland vacation type of guy.” he said. “I just visited my brother and mom. Had a few dates, nothing new.” he looked up at Steve, who was leaning against the door frame, waiting for Clint. “What about you? Anything new happen with you and Miss Carter this summer?”

Miss Carter was Steve's long time girlfriend, Peggy Carter. Almost all of the staff had met her on multiple occasions during staff holiday parties and various other events. She had moved over from England after serving several years in the British military and was now teaching art history at the women college in the city. Peggy was a wonderful woman and Clint, much like everyone who met her, enjoyed her company greatly. But everyone also knew that Steve was the world's leading expert in waiting too long and everyone was waiting to see when he'd ask the big question (some had even started a betting pool just for shits and giggles). If there was one thing the staff at Xavier's loved more than free food and gossip, it was a wedding, where they'd have an even better excuse to get free food and gossip.

Steve blushed and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Uh,well, this summer was, it was nice.” he stammered.“We went to Atlanta to visit her cousins. Hung out with my mom for the fourth. Nothing special.” One of the not so great things about Steve was his ability to lie. The guy was as honest as Abe Lincoln, and Clint could see right through the front he was putting up to skirt around whatever he was hiding.

“Huh. Sounds like fun. Are you sure nothing else happened though?” Clint asked as he walked towards the door. Steve quickly moved out of the way to avoid both Clint and his questions. “No. It was about as normal as summers can get. More eventful than yours though.” Steve replied.

The corners of Clint's lips turned upward into a small smirk. As much as he wanted to pester Steve about what had gone on between him and Peggy over the summer, he knew it would be better to share the gossip with Natasha and watch as word spread around the school.

He threw up his hands. “Alright, if you insist. You a fan of Jimmy John's? I'm more of a Jersey Mikes guy myself.” Clint said, changing the subject. “Yeah. They're pretty good I guess. Not much of a fast food guy though.” Steve said. The color was draining from his face, a sign that he was relieved that Clint let up on his interrogation. “But you know how the PTO is, the more they want us to forgive their kids, the better the food.”

It was common knowledge that whenever a PTO member's kid did something awful during the school year, they'd usually apologize by catering food for the faculty meetings. Although the catering at the first meeting of the year was standard, everyone knew that some parent was hoping that it would smooth whatever mishap may have happened before school had let out back in May.

So far the best food they had gotten was three years ago after a sophomore had tried to go toe to toe with the world music teacher, Ororo Munroe. The parent was a wealthy lawyer (much to the staff's benefit) and devout Republican (much to the staff's dismay), so they catered the best that they could, an entire buffet that included a sushi and salad bar. Everyone now joked about how students should try and fight the teachers more often, even Ororo.

“Let's hope that one of them does something to Stark, then we'd all probably get coupons to a five-star restaurant.” Clint joked. They walked the empty halls and staircase until they reached the cafeteria, where it was bustling with teachers getting sandwiches and finding their friends to sit and eat with. Clint quickly walked over to a table towards the front where the food was laid out and grabbed the first sandwich he saw, not caring what was on it. He grabbed a bag of Lays and a can of Coke to accompany it and waited for Steve to make his choice of lunch. When Steve made his way past the other teachers just making it down to lunch, Clint scanned the crowd for their friends. He spotted them at a table towards the back, surrounded by their usual crowd. The only people missing were himself and Steve.

As they approached the table, Clint could hear Tony arguing loudly with Phil above the rancor of the surrounding tables. “Well, it's good to see that those two haven't changed much over the summer.” Steve said. They were both greeted by the others as they took their seats, Clint between Natasha and Phil and Steve next to Sam and Tony. Poor Bruce was being pushed by Tony's left shoulder and was teetering dangerously close to the trash can beside him.

“Where have you two been?” Sam asked as Clint unwrapped his sandwich. “I had to go get my phone off the charger.” he explained. “What've I missed?”

“Oh you know, the usual. Nat and I were just talking about a work out schedule. Bruce being his usual quiet self, no offense doc.” Sam smiled at the doctor down the table. Sam was another friendly face at Xavier's and Clint was upset that he didn't know him as well as Steve and Natasha. Apparently the trio had a weekly habit of going to the gym together with Steve's other friend and co-worker, Bucky. Clint wasn't really interested in barging in on their routine, so he always denied whenever they invited him (he wasn't the world's biggest fitness nut like Steve was).

“Those two however,” Sam continued, jabbing a finger towards Tony and Phil who hadn't let up from their arguing to greet them, “I never get into their sandbox squabbles, but they've been arguing about the social status” Sam put air quotes around the two words, “of all of our co-workers.”

“It's more interesting than it sounds.” Bruce said down the table, straining to be heard over the two bickering adults blocking him. “Tony's making some valid points, just not using very valid vocabulary.” Almost on cue, Tony delivered a less than flattering string of four letter words to Phil. “So it's just another day back at work then?” Steve asked. The three adults not submerged in the argument shrugged their shoulders and nodded.

“Well look who finally decided to show up!” Tony said, finally acknowledging Clint and Steve's arrival. “You're a bit late on that one Tony,” Bruce said. “Yeah yeah, better late than never. But hey, since you're here,” Tony started. “Here we go,” Natasha muttered as she took a sip of her Sprite. “We need an outside opinion on something Phil is being totally stupid about.”

“First of all Stark,” Phil cut in, “I'm not stupid, just overly passionate about beating your ass in an argument for once. Second of all, Steve and Clint don't count as outside sources, they hang out with us.”

“Well they weren't here when this whole thing started, so they're valid enough.” Tony turned away from Phil. “So you know how we've all graduated at least over ten years ago right?” he started.

“All of us as in just everyone at this table or everyone in this cafeteria?” Steve asked. “Cause I'm pretty sure Miles, Peter and Gwen are fresh out of out grad school.”

“All of us as in the majority of people who work here.” Tony said. “So we've all graduated and all that jazz, but we still flock together like the kids from Mean Girls.”

“Yeah, funny how people tend to hang out with other people who share interests and all that jazz.” Clint said mockingly. “Glad that it took you so long to figure it out Stark.”

“At least I don't let my neighbors dictate my sleeping schedule.” Tony retorted. Clint gave him the double bird the best he could while holding a sub in his hands. “Anyway,” Tony said loudly, clearly trying hard to bite back a nasty reply, “There is a total hierarchy system here that is undeniable. I mean just look around you.” Tony stood from his seat and swept his hands across the room in a grand gesture. “Little teacher and staff cliques just begging to be placed on our own little social pyramid.”

Clint nodded. “You were right Bruce, he does have a point. Just a weird way of saying it. Why was this an argument again?” he turned and asked Phil. “Because Tony was placing everyone in the wrong groups! You can't put Peter and Gwen in the Dramatic Fanatics group! That's strictly reserved for Darcy and Wade.” Phil defended. “Steve, come on, help a guy out here.”

“I'd rather just finish my Doritos.” Steve said. Before he could open the bag, Tony reached down and swept it right out of his hands. “Help us finish this first, then you can get back to your cheap corn chips.” the math teacher said.

Steve, not wanting to get into an argument, sighed and began scanned the crowd before pointing at a group of teachers a few tables down. “There. Thor, Logan, Luke and Ororo. Let's call 'em the Dream team since we're getting fancy with the names.”

“Yeah, put that creative writing degree to some work.” Tony mocked. Steve rolled his eyes and continued. “They've all got looks and muscles to envy and I'm pretty sure Ororo and Luke could give me a run for my money, and I was nominated teacher of the year.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Although Ororo was the only teacher at the table that didn't teach a physical education class, she still worked out regularly and rumor had it that she beat Thor in a bench press contest. Thor, of course, had the looks of a god, so no question there. Luke Cage was in charge of the school's JROTC unit and wrestling team. Although he looked like he could fight a bear with one arm behind his back, Luke was a nice guy, if you stayed on his nice side. James Logan, the baseball coach and part time health teacher, however, was a different story. If you got on his bad side, it was impossible to get on good terms with him again. Clint knew this all too well.

He avoided Logan's gaze as he looked over at the table with his friends, but was inevitably met with his glare. Clint quickly looked back at the table, suddenly becoming very interested in a mustard stain. Natasha had apparently taken notice of Clint's quick retreat. “Oh come on Clint,” she said, “You can't avoid him forever. We do work together after all.”

“Nat, the guy is a two-hundred pound ball of hairy Canadian fury.” Clint said quietly. He knew Logan couldn't hear him, but he didn't want to risk starting the year off with an intervention from him.

“Oh how angry could he still be?” Sam said, trying to boost Clint's spirits. “Wait, never mind, he's flipping a double bird. Yeah, he's still salty.”

“Okay Stark, I did your little, whatever this is.” Steve said. “Now give me my chips back.”

“Sorry, I licked a few of them, so they're mine now.” Tony joked. Steve stood and reached for the bag, nearly knocking over Sam's can of Dr. Pepper. “Watch it man!” Sam shouted, grabbing for the can before it could topple over. Everyone picked up their food to avoid it being sent off the table in the tussle. Bruce got up and moved to the other end of the table, next to Natasha, to avoid being elbowed in the face.

“Well the year is off to a good start already.” he said as he sat down. “Nothing like testosterone to welcome you back to another nine months here.” Natasha said.  
Steve was finally able to grab hold of the Doritos, but Tony still had a death grip on the bag, and when Steve yanked, the bag ripped open, showering the table with Cool Ranch Doritos. Steve nearly fell over, and placed a hand out behind him to keep himself from falling, but instead sent Sam's Dr. Pepper splashing across the table. “SHIT!” Tony shouted. The conversation in the cafeteria came a screeching halt as everyone whipped around to see the chaos. Clint and everyone else at the table stood up quickly to avoid being soaked by the sticky mess.

“STARK!” Fury shouted from the front of the cafeteria. They could only stand and watch as the principal marched towards them angrily. Sam shook his head as he walked on the other side of the table to join Clint and the others.“I knew it was only a matter of time before something was gonna happen.”

“Well at least now there's something to keep everyone off of Clint's ass. What d'you wanna call this one?” Bruce asked. “How about Doritos Locos Meltdown?” Phil offered. “Ooh, I like that one.” Natasha replied. “Those in favor say 'aye'.”

Before anyone could answer, Fury had reached their table, but didn't get a word out before he slipped in the puddle of Dr. Pepper that had spilled onto the floor. The cafeteria burst with laughter, at the sight of their boss struggling to stay on his feet as two men argued over who needed to buy who a new bag of Doritos.

  
“Well, at least no one can say our job is boring.” Clint said as he grabbed at a stitch in his side from laughing so hard.

“Yeah. No one better say a damn thing about us being boring.” Sam replied as Fury started to swear enough to make a sailor turn red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been through hell to get this thing posted (my laptop deleted the file twice and i had to retype the whole thing). sorry for it being so long, but i write until everything that needs to be said is said. the second chapter is in the works and i will try to have it posted in the next two weeks or so. just gonna go ahead and say that come mid-august, updates will probably become more and more spaced out because i will be starting my freshman year of college. if you want to talk to me outside of the comments (i am lousy at keeping up with them), shoot me a message on my tumblr at coeranus.tumblr.com or if you're feeling lucky, email me at sayh3y@gmail.com (you'll have better luck with my email since i'm away from home frequently).  
> please enjoy and critique me or give me ideas for one shots! i can only improve if i get tips on how to!


	2. Mystery Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anyone know who the Mystery Twins are? Not the ones from Gravity Falls, but the fast one and the weird one. That's what the staff of Xavier's are trying to find out before Tony's highly anticipated party.

After the commotion in the cafeteria ended, Fury gave orders for all of them to stay afterward and clean up the mess of soggy chips and soda. It was a much better punishment than whatever else Fury probably could have come up with, but it still sucked, especially since it took away from time that Clint could be using to finish up his class work so that he could leave and get a nap in before going to Tony's.

“Why the hell do we have to clean up Stark and Roger's mess?” Natasha muttered angrily as she and Clint followed Stan to his supply closet (Stan seemed utterly relieved that he didn't have to clean up their mess. In fact, he laughed when Fury told him what he was making them do).

“Hey, at least we're not fired.” Clint tried to reassure her. She didn't answer him. When Stan unlocked his supply closet, he gestured inside, with a game show host smile on his face. “Choose your weapons of choice kiddos.” he laughed. “I'm taking an early lunch today!” he tossed Clint the keys and hobbled off as fast as his rickety legs would allow him. They gathered supplies quickly and made their way back to the cafeteria, where they were now scrubbing hard at the now sticky soda that would probably stain the table for the rest of eternity (or until they found a stronger cleaning solution).

To try and break up the tension, Tony, who most of the tension was directed at, started to brag about how amazing his party was going to be later that evening. Despite the fact that everyone wanted to tell him to shut up, no one did. It was easier to listen to him to keep their mind off their situation instead of plotting how to shove him into his own grill at the party.

The talk of the party did wonders to keep Steve from strangling Tony, but the conversation was only reminding Clint how much he'd much rather go home and sleep for the evening. He had already tried to talk his way out of the party, but Tony was persistent that everyone in 'Adult Supervision Required', the name Maria had given them after Tony explained his hierarchy system to her, be in attendance.

“Guys, come on. I promise you it's gonna be ten times better than last year. I got strobe lights and everything. The whole nine yards.” Tony said as he moped the floor.

“That sounds a little excessive, don't you think?” Bruce asked from underneath the table, where he was picking up a few chips that had landed there. Tony knelt down to look at his friend underneath the table.“You can never be excessive when it comes to parties.”

“You do remember the year you set your pool on fire, right?” Sam asked. Tony shot up, his cheery expression suddenly gone. “Nobody told Parker to test out his chemistry set in my hot tub!” he shouted.

“Whatever you say Hot Hands.” Sam chuckled. Tony grimaced at the mention the nickname Darcy had planted on him the year of the incident. “Also, he's a biology teacher. If you're gonna roast the kid, do it right. But I guess he's already roasted you the worst hasn't he?”

“You wanna be uninvited Wilson?” Tony threatened. Sam threw up his hands. “Hey, I've got a girl I could go home with instead of your place, and I think she might have a bit more to offer than you do.”

“Anyone heard about the new kids working here?” Phil asked quickly before Tony had a chance to come up with a reply witty enough to put a dent in Sam's ego. Everyone's attention turned to Phil. “New kids?” Steve asked. “Fury didn't say anything about anyone new joining staff this year during the meeting.”

“I wasn't supposed to say anything but it's been killing me to keep it in all day.” Phil explained. “Maria told me about them. Two new teachers, one guy, one girl. Apparently they're twins.”

“Why weren't they here today?” Natasha asked. The tension had melted away completely, replaced by the curiosity over the prospect of new teachers, which meant new gossip. “Maria said they were here, just not in their rooms or at the meeting cause they got here late. She and Jasper were going to give them a tour after lunch. So they should be here right now.”

“When the hell did she tell you all this?” Tony asked. He hated being left out of anything that he could use to spread his relevance and popularity in the staff. “She called me last night and told me we were getting new teachers. The rest she told me after I got here. Hey, have any of you been in the office today? Hot as balls in there.”

“Don't try to change the subject.” Tony said. “You got any idea where in the building they are? I need them to be at the party tonight.” he threw down his mop and walked over to Phil. “Text Maria right now. I need to meet them.” Phil put his spray bottle on the table and took his phone out from his pocket. Everyone crowded around him (Steve had to go help Bruce off the floor) and waited as he sent a message to Maria. “What'd you say? You better not have said that I asked for them.” Tony said sternly.

“Relax. I just said that she should invite them to your place tonight.” Phil's phone buzzed, alerting everyone to Maria's reply. “Well? What'd she say?” Tony begged. “Quit your whining Stark.” Phil said without looking up from the phone's screen. Clint stood on his toes to peer over Sam's shoulder at the tiny illuminated box.

“Why is she listed as 'Sound of Music'?” he asked. Phil sighed, frustrated that he had to explain this and relay messages. “Maria. Like the nun from The Sound of Music. Von Trap Family Singers.” No one said anything. “Have any of you seen that movie?”

“I've seen it,” Natasha admitted, “I just would have picked a better name for her than that.”

“Guys, we're kinda in the middle of something here.” Tony interrupted. “I think 'Feminist Avenger' or something along those lines would have been a bit better.” Natasha offered. Everyone muttered their agreements. “Or maybe 'Slushie Queen'. Gotta admit that she does love Sonic slushies.” Clint added in.

“Guys!” Tony shouted. “Phil has yet to read Fraulein Maria's message. So if you could please chill for a minute.”

“Fraulein Maria! I knew she had a proper title. Just couldn't remember it.” Phil said. He quickly changed Maria's contact name. Tony was groaning in frustration. Clint wondered if Phil had done it on purpose just to annoy Tony or if he was honestly doing it because he didn't want to forget later on. Regardless, when the contact name was changed, he read Fraulein Maria's message aloud. “Are you fucking crazy? She added a bunch of question marks. I don't think she wants to do it.”

“Well I'm not waiting til tomorrow to meet these two. No way in hell they're gonna miss the most exciting thing to happen before school starts. It's already a shame they had to miss Doritos Locos Meltdown.” Tony said bitterly.

Phil's fingers moved quickly across the screen, typing out another message to Maria. For a guy in his fifties, he knew how to work a smart phone without any problem, which was more than most Baby Boomers could say.

“Alright, I told her that you said you'd be pissed if they didn't show up.” he said after he sent the message. “I told you not to put my name in this!” Tony shouted.  
“She was probably gonna figure out you were behind all this to begin with. I mean, we are in the same room, and I was the only other person besides her, Fury and Jasper who knew about the twins.”

“He's got a point.” Clint said. Tony pulled out of the huddle around Phil and stormed across the cafeteria. Everyone else fell out of the huddle and watched as Tony paced back and forth across the room. “I've gotta know where they're at.” he kept muttering to himself.

Sam leaned over and muttered something into Clint's ear.“How many five hour energies did he say he'd drunk?”

“When I was down there this morning, he'd had six.” Clint said. “I think they're finally making all of it is way to his head.” Sam replied.

“She said she'll ask them at the end of the tour.” Phil called out. “She also said that if any of you try to talk to them between now and the end of the day or tell this to anyone else she'll, uh. Well, it's not very flattering, but we all know Maria well enough to get the idea.”

“This is fucking ridiculous.” Natasha spoke up. Everyone turned to her in surprise. No one was surprised at her language, they all knew she had the mouth of a sailor, but the reply was uncalled for. “Sorry. Not the twins or whatever this is. What's fucking ridiculous is that I'm still here cleaning up Stark and Roger's mess.” she grabbed the paper towels she was using to scrub the table and dumped them into the trash can. “I'm going back upstairs to get whatever work I need to do done. I'll see you all at Stark's.” she left without saying another word.

“I need to get back to my room too.” Bruce said. “How about everyone but Tony and Steve go back and finish up for the day. This was all their fault anyway.” Sam offered.

“Sounds good enough to me.” Clint said.  
“Hold on a second,” Steve said, clearly upset that he'd have to be stuck with Tony. They got along well enough on other occasions, but no one could blame him for not wanting to be with him in this situation. “If anyone should have to stay too, it's Phil.”

“Excuse me?” the personal finance teacher shot his head up from his phone screen. The two men started to argue like kids on a playground. While Sam, Clint and Bruce stood and watched. Sam was the first of them to speak up. “I'm just gonna go.” he turned without further comment and exited the room. Bruce and Clint quickly followed, not wanting to be dragged into yet another argument before one o'clock rolled around.

* * *

 

The moment the hour hand hit five, there was a mad dash for the parking lot. Everyone was determined to get home and freshen up before heading to Tony's. The few staff members that had children were double checking with babysitters to make sure everything was still set in stone, while anyone who was married or had a date were calling to make sure that their significant other would be ready by the time they arrived.

Clint was among the first of to leave, but only because he was eager to get home and take a nap before finding out who the mystery twins were and so he'd be properly energized before leaving for the party. When he stepped back outside for the first time since he'd arrived that morning, the air had cooled significantly. There were clouds blocking out most of the sun's rays, but showed no hint of rain, promising a cool and comfortable evening ahead. Although the clouds may have kept the air outside cool, it did nothing for the inside of Clint's car. He swore as he burned his hands on the steering wheel and got into the stuffy car.

Clint could see Tony walking out the back of the building just as he was buckling into his seat belt. “Nothing like a refreshing fifteen mile drive with no ac, hey Barton!” Tony shouted across the parking lot as he unlocked the door to his very well air conditioned Audi.

“At least I don't piss battery acid!” Clint shouted back. The roar of Clint's car engine starting up drowned out whatever curse Tony shouted in reply. He pulled out of the parking lot and started his commute home.

Thankfully, since it was still summer for most people, the traffic was light and Clint was able to make it to his apartment before five-thirty. He pulled into his usual parking space and got out the car. He started up the stairs to his third floor apartment, greeting his bondage crazed neighbors as they were coming down the stairs. He wanted to say something to them about the night before, but based on the conversation they were having when he passed, things hadn't been as exciting as they had sounded from Clint's end.

He reached his apartment and unlocked the door. Everything had been left in the exact place that he'd left it in his mad dash out the door that morning, including his keys which were laying on the coffee table in the middle of his living room. “At least I didn't have to look for them.” he said to himself as he locked the door behind him. Just as an extra measure (and to make sure no one could get on him tomorrow at work), he attached his classroom set of keys to the spare key ring he had on his car keys and placed them back on the coffee table. He threw down his belongings on the couch, kicked off his shoes and walked to the back of the apartment, where his bedroom was.

His bed was never a more welcoming sight, but he knew if he went to sleep now, he'd most definitely over sleep and Tony would be on his ass. He opted for a shower instead, so that way if he did fall asleep, at least he wouldn't wake up in the clothes he'd had on all day, could get dressed and be out the door. Clint threw a fresh outfit together and hung it on the bathroom door knob so that way he wouldn't have to iron it (he also didn't own an iron, so steaming clothes in the shower was his only option).

As he stood in the bathroom, waiting for the shower to heat up, he could hear his neighbors coming back into their bedroom, which was adjacent to his. It sounded like they were arguing about something or another. Clint didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the walls were thin and it didn't help that those two were naturally loud. He tried to block out the sounds of them arguing as he got into the shower by playing music from his phone, but it didn't help.

_Note to self, ask neighbors to argue more quietly. And check listings for another apartment._  He thought to himself.

It wasn't that Clint lived in a bad complex, the people were nice enough. The old lady across the hall would give him baked goods from time to time and was a retired teacher herself. The college student who lived below him would ask Clint to cat-sit whenever he went out of town and would repay him by letting him use his Netflix account. He'd never had problems with his neighbors or landlord, but he'd been living there for six years, and he felt it was high time that he pick up and move. It didn't help either that since the couple next door moved in a year ago, the quiet atmosphere that Clint used to enjoy on the weekends was now gone.

The argument next door ended with Clint's shower, which he was grateful for. As he was buttoning his shirt, his phone buzzed on the sink. He looked over onto the screen and saw a text message alert from Natasha.

_Nat: I'm driving you to Tony's place tonight._

He and Natasha were good friends, but he couldn't stand the habit she had of arriving unnaturally early to events and Clint didn't want her to cut into his nap time. He picked up the phone and typed a hasty reply.  _Thanks for the offer, but you don't have to do that._ He watched and waited as the tiny text bubble on the phone screen loaded her next reply.

_Nat: Wasn't an offer. I'm taking you. I've got something to show you._

_Clint: Just send a picture of whatever it is._

_Nat: Nah. It'd spoil the surprise. You're gonna want to wait and see this one in person, I promise. :)_

He muttered a swear under his breath. Thanks to his years at Xavier's, he was now as much of a sucker for the potential of surprises and rumors as Darcy. The prospect was tempting enough to make him forgo a nap and leave early with Natasha.

_Clint: You're cutting into my nap time you know._

_Nat: You can sleep when you get back home. Trust me, you'll thank me later. Well, me and Sam. Just be ready BEFORE I get there._

_Clint: Alright. What time are you gonna be here?_

_Nat: In about thirty minutes. I have to stop and get drinks cause I already know Stark's gonna have Jack Daniels and nothing else._

_Clint: Okay. Are you coming in the Widow or the Soccer Mom?_

_Nat: The Widow. No way in hell I'm showing up to Stark's in an old Subaru._

“Fuck dang it.” he muttered.

The Black Widow, The Widow for short, was Natasha's highly insured and highly envied by Steve black Yamaha that she'd gotten as a birthday gift to herself two years ago. Clint had no problem with the bike itself, Natasha always made sure it was in top condition and he had to admit that he was a bit jealous of the bike too. It was just that riding on the back with Natasha wasn't his favorite thing in the world. While she was a careful driver in her 2002 Subaru, she drove like a bat out of hell on the Widow. When she first got the bike, she had driven them to lunch that day. It had seemed like a fun idea at the time, but when they arrived at the restaurant he was positive he'd gotten whiplash from all the sharp turns she'd taken. There wasn't much of a point in protesting against her taking The Widow.

He sighed and typed out his reply.  _Alright. You do have an extra helmet though right? I'm not trying to crack my skull open before orientation or meeting these mystery twins._

_Nat: Of course I brought a helmet for you. I don't want to kill you that bad. Who would I have to spoil American Horror Story for if you were gone?_

_Clint: Ugh. Whatever. I'll see you when you get here._

He locked his phone without waiting for a reply from Natasha and finished getting dressed. The steam from the shower managed to get all of the wrinkles out of shirt, but did nothing for the black jeans he had set out to wear. _Another note to self, buy iron after orientation tomorrow._

He left the bathroom to grab his socks and shoes, then went into the living room to wait for Natasha to arrive. The one good thing about Natasha's driving on The Widow was how she managed to drive at break neck speeds and somehow avoid getting a speeding ticket. He hadn't even been waiting fifteen minutes before he got a call from her, telling him to come downstairs. He grabbed his keys off the coffee table, praying that his school set would managed to stay attached to the key chain during the party, his leather jacket off the coat rack by the door and left the his apartment.

Just as expected, Clint could see Natasha waiting for him in the parking lot sitting on the motorcycle. There was a new addition to the bike though, something that she must have added over the summer. Attached to the left side of the bike, was a side car. Natasha spread her arms out wide, as if she were presenting a prize on 'The Price Is Right'.

“Surprise!” she called up to him. “How do you like it?”

“Kinda kills the Russian biker chick vibe!” he shouted over the railing. He locked the door and took the stairs down two at a time. He reached the parking lot and hurried over to Natasha.

“Is this the surprise you said I'd like?” he asked.

“You did hear me shout surprise right?” she revved the engine of the bike. “Sam helped me get this back in June before I left. He thought that it'd be a nice addition since not everyone can handle my driving.”

“Well you drive like you're in Grand Theft Auto.” he said. “Hopefully this will be more comfortable than my ass sliding off the back of this thing while you try to break some speed record.” Natasha swatted his arm.

“Come on. I wanna see if the mystery twins showed up after all.” she said. Clint grabbed the helmet and the bottle of vodka that Natasha had set inside the side car. It was a tight fit with the bottle in his lap, but it was comfortable enough for the short ride to Tony's house. “Let's hope the booze makes it with us.” he strapped on the helmet and held on as Natasha sped out of the parking lot.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, the side car still didn't keep Clint from feeling like he had the world's worst case of whiplash. His legs were cramped from the constant readjusting he had to do in order to keep the vodka in place as Natasha drove. Still, it was better than having to hold onto her waist and pray that he didn't loose his grip half way through the drive.

She pulled into the driveway of Tony's home. Apart from Tony's two cars, a black Jetta that belonged to Pepper, Sam's pick-up truck and Natasha's bike, it appeared that no one else had arrived yet. She put the bike into park and stepped off. “That wasn't so bad. Was it?” she asked as she took off her helmet. Clint never knew what sorcery she was using, but somehow her hair always managed to stay in place whenever she'd take out the ponytail that she kept her hair in when wearing a helmet.

He struggled to get out of the low sitting side car, but didn't ask her for assistance. “It was alright.” he groaned. Once out of the car, he passed the bottle over to her so he could take off his helmet and stretched his legs. “More leg room would be appreciated though.” he said. Natasha rolled her eyes and started up the path to Tony's front door.

Just like his personality, Tony's house was extravagant and ostentatious. It was amazing to Clint that his low rent apartment complex was only a ten minute drive away from the multiple story homes that belonged to lawyers, doctors, rich retired Baby Boomers and the exceptional few that were living off of a great aunt's inheritance.  
Natasha knocked on the door and was promptly answered by Tony. He was wearing aviator shades, despite the fact that he was inside and that there were only two hours of sunlight left in the day. A cigar was dangling from his lips and there was a glass in his hand, already filled with an amber liquid. He was dressed like Hugh Hefner's much younger brother. Surprisingly enough, this was a down grade from the party in 2010 when neon everything was in style.

“I thought this was a barbeque, not a costume party.” Natasha said when she saw Tony's get up. He smiled and spread his arms out. “I was trying to shoot for a 'dressed to impress' theme, and since wearing a tux to a party in my backyard was a bit excessive, I just went with this.”

“You should've gone with the tux. Wouldn't have looked as ridiculous.” Clint said, trying to bite back a laugh. Tony took the cigar out of his mouth and waved it between Clint and Natasha.

“Don't judge. I've got my own original thing going on here.”

He stepped back and allowed them to pass through the doorway and into the enormous foyer. Clint always felt poorer than he already was whenever he came to Tony's house. It wasn't a Buckingham Palace or Taj Mahal, but it was enough to put his tiny two bedroom apartment to shame. In the center of the foyer, a chandelier was hanging from the ceiling, shining light off of the pristine white walls. To the left was a spiral staircase that led to the second floor. On the left was the living room where Pepper, Sam and a girl Clint didn't know were sitting. They all had drinks in their hands and were laughing at whatever story Sam was telling. Clint and Natasha took no time to join them while Tony had gone off into the backyard to check and see if the grill was hot enough yet, taking Natasha's bottle of vodka with him to sit in the cooler.

“Well look who the cat dragged in.” Sam said when he saw the pair walking in. Pepper and the other woman raised their bottles of varying drinks at them in welcome.

“I thought Tony uninvited you.” Natasha said as she sat down.

“Nah. Who else would be here to tell all the good stories?” Sam laughed.

“I think Phil would be able to substitute pretty well. Or we could just talk about Canada versus the Barton Sanitizer Company.” Pepper said. Everyone else but Clint and the woman sitting next to Sam laughed.

“So, you're new here. It's always nice to meet a new face around here.” Clint asked, quickly wanting to change the subject from himself. She put down her glass on the coffee table and introduced herself.

“I'm Monica. Monica Rambeau. Ororo and I are friends. She introduced Sam and I at a fourth of July barbecue over the summer.”

“Really?” Natasha asked. “How do you and Ororo know each other? It's not often we hear about her social life.”

“Yeah,” Pepper spoke up, “Because then everyone and their mother would be on her ass about who she hangs out with.”

“Last time I checked, Ororo hung out with every other woman in the wage pool.” Sam said. Pepper nodded in agreement. “True. But I see her talking with Logan, Luke and Thor more than anyone else at work.”

“All the students swear up and down that she and Luke are a thing. I'm doubting it though. Logan seems more her speed.” Natasha added in.

“Since when were you interested in who Ororo is most likely to date?” Clint asked. “Oh I'm not interested in her love life, just throwing out my opinion since we're on the subject.” Natasha replied. Everyone in the room laughed, everyone except Monica.

“I don't think Ororo would appreciate you talking about her love life.” she said. “She'd probably be happy to tell you herself if you'd just ask.”

“If anyone did work up the nerve to ask, they'd probably just get a bird bigger than our mascot.” Clint laughed. Monica raised an eyebrow. “Do you guys seriously not know?”  
“Know what?” they all asked in unison. Monica knitted her eyebrows together, looking as if she were pondering whether or not to tell whatever secret she was holding back. Clint leaned forward in his spot on the couch, not wanting to miss what Monica was going to say.

“It's nothing. Well, not nothing.” she said at last. “If Ororo won't tell you then it's not my place to say anything.” Everyone in the room let out a collective groan. “Well she wasn't lying when she said you guys were nosy as hell. Although that's a much more watered down version of what she said.” Natasha let out a short laugh. “I can only imagine what she says about us outside of work.”

“She uses very colorful language.” Monica said. “I've heard a lot about some guy named Clint though. She says that one of her work buddies, Logan I think, has it out for him pretty bad.”

Clint groaned and put his face in his hands. “Oh, I'm sorry.” Monica apologized.

“It's okay. He's just prone to bad luck and butter fingers.” he heard Pepper laugh. “But anyway, how do you and Ororo know each other?”

“We interned at the same place ages ago for college credit. Nothing special.” she said.

The door bell rang, interrupting their conversation. “Can someone get that?” Tony called from the backyard.

“I got it!” Clint answered. He got up and paced back into the foyer to open the door for the new guests. He opened the door to reveal Peter, Gwen and Miles. “Did you guys car pool together?” Clint asked, opening the door wider to let them in. “Those two rode together,” Gwen said, jabbing her finger over her shoulder at Peter and Miles. The two younger men waved sheepishly at Clint. Even though Peter and Clint had been working together for four years now, the biology teacher still mostly kept to himself. The only people he'd ever seen him hang out with outside of work was Gwen and Wade (Clint was desperately praying that the substitute would skip on the party).

“Quit stallin' and let the people in!” Sam shouted from the living room. “I guess that's a good enough welcome.” Miles laughed. The trio walked walked past Clint into the living room, introducing themselves to Monica and settling in with beers from the cooler.

Just as Pepper was about to explain the Great Sanitizer Spill to Monica (much against Clint's pleas), Tony walked back in to greet his new guests. When he spotted Peter sitting on the couch, his expression darkened. “Uh oh.” Gwen whispered as she took a sip of her beer.

“Parker.” Tony said flatly. “Hi Tony.” Peter returned.

“Hopefully we won't have a Hot Hands 2.0 on our hands tonight.” Sam said trying to break up the tension.

“I promise not to ruin anything in your house again,” Peter started, “wouldn't want Mr. Hefner have to explain to his bunnies why they had to evacuate again.” The living room exploded with laughter. The corners of Tony's lips turned upward slightly. “We'll see who's still standing at the end of the night Crocodile Hunter.”

* * *

 

Steve was glad that he and Peggy were living together, it saved him time from having to drive halfway across town to pick her up from her former apartment complex. But it also meant that he'd have to wait an agonizing amount of time for her to get ready. He had thought that since she didn't have to start work again for another two weeks, she'd have been ready by the time he'd gotten home. But apparently, Peggy had decided to get a jump start on creating new lesson plans for the fall semester and had completely forgotten that she would be accompanying Steve to the party later that evening.

He was sitting in the living room, playing Bejewled on his phone to cure his boredom as he waited for Peggy to appear from the bedroom so they could leave for Tony's place. He was sliding his thumb across the screen to match a combination of rubies that would help him break his long standing high score, when Peggy walked into the room.

“How do I look?” she asked, spreading her arms out to fully show off her outfit. Steve looked up from his game. A smile lit up his face when he saw her. “Is that a rhetorical question?” Peggy wrinkled up her nose and bent down to swat him on the arm with her clutch purse.

It was a completely ridiculous question for her to ask. She was stunning, as she usually was. It didn't seem possible that someone could make red an even more vibrant and impressive color than it already was, but Steve swore that Peggy had some magic in her veins to make it look even better whenever she wore it. The outfit itself wasn't even that elaborate, just a simple pair of black skinny jeans and a button down red shirt, but Peggy made it look like she'd picked it right off a model at fashion week.

“You look great.” Steve finally said. He stood and stretched his legs, their low sitting couch always made him feel like an old man whenever he'd get up. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before grabbing his keys off the television stand. “You ready to go? Cause Tony might make a few below-the-belt comments if we're any later.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “I'm sure I can handle whatever Stark can dish out. My grandmother could probably do worse, God rest her soul.” Steve laughed and opened the door for her. They chatted about each others day as they got into the car and drove off, Peggy mostly inquiring about the happenings in the cafeteria and the new teachers that he'd slipped into the conversation to change the subject from cleaning up soggy corn chips.

“What is it with you guys and all this gossip?” she asked as they stopped at a railroad track. “I swear none of my girls talk as much or as badly as you bunch.”  
“If you worked with us, I promise you'd be in on it too. I thought I'd be above it, but it gets to all of us eventually.” Steve said. “I'm surprised it hasn't rubbed off on you yet. You hang out with us just as much as your co-workers.”

“Well for starters, hanging out with you guys gives me plenty to talk about with Angie and Sharon.” she said referring to two other professors at the college. “It's loads more interesting to talk about you all than whatever the first years chat about between classes.” The train passing by nearly drowned out the last part of her sentence. They sat in silence for a moment, watching as the train rolled past idly. When the caboose finally passed the intersection, Peggy spoke up again.“I just hope you and I haven't become the subject of discussion.”

“As far as I know, we haven't” Steve said as he started across the railroad tracks. “Besides, it's not like we do anything for them to talk about.” Peggy snorted a laugh. “If I remember correctly, Valentine's Day a few years ago kept your friends messaging me up until Easter.”

Steve tried to stifle a laugh at the memory, but failed. That Valentine's Day (or 'Sweet Cherry Pie' as Darcy had called it) was thankfully the only event that anyone at work could make jokes about. Anything else anyone came up with were jokes about his long standing boyfriend status with Peggy.

“Well let's just hope that no one weasels anything out of you tonight.” she turned towards him.

“It'll take more than Tony's nosing to get me to talk.”

“I'm not just talking about Tony. If anything I'm worried that you'll crack under pressure.”

Steve felt heat rise to his face at the comment. He knew he was no good at keeping secrets, or lying. It was a miracle that he had managed to keep it together while Clint was questioning him earlier that day. Usually he could keep small secrets like where he kept his stash of Doritos in his classroom, the hints to Bruce's bookshelf if he ever managed to figure them out or just spoilers to television shows and movies. But the events of the summer were fluttering inside his head, ready to erupt against his will if someone pressed him hard enough. He knew that someone that he hadn't managed to talk to during the day would ask him about his summer and he'd have to make a cover story again and pray that no one asked about how he'd spent the Fourth of July.

“Don't miss the turn.” Peggy said, snapping Steve out of his thoughts. He had almost driven right past the street that he'd driven down so many times (too many times in Steve's opinion). “Sorry. I was just thinking...”

Peggy raised an eyebrow. “About what?”

“You know what.” he pulled into a space that was open at the edge of Tony's drive way. He stopped the car and looked over at Peggy. “You know. This summer.”

“And?”

He took a deep breath and continued. “Maybe we shouldn't keep this from everyone. I mean, our families know, Angie knows,”

“That's because Angie was actually there. Sharon will have to find out at the same time, just like everyone else.”

“Well, what if we just tell everyone now.” Steve said.

Peggy sighed and started to undo her seat belt. Steve rushed out the rest of his statement. “I mean, you know I'm terrible at lying and keeping secrets. How long do you think it'll be before someone gets it out of me? And it just doesn't feel right to keep all this from my friends. They always come to me to talk and I don't want to feel like I'm cheating them by keeping them in the dark about this.” he waved his hand between himself and Peggy.

She paused right as she was about to open the door, and turned to him. “I'm just not ready for them to know yet. I feel like we should let it settle down first before we open up a brand new box for everyone to dig into.” She leaned across and kissed him. “Enough talk about that though. Let's get inside before Tony comes out and I have to start the party by flipping him.” Peggy got out of the car and started across the lawn, leaving Steve behind pondering how he was going to manage to keep in this monster of a secret until Peggy was ready to share with everyone, and god knew how long that would be.

* * *

 

After suffering through her brother's speed demon driving, Wanda was regretting not taking up Maria's offer to drive them to the party herself. It was a miracle that they had managed to make it to the house in one piece after Pietro had managed to run several stop signs, miss the turn onto the right street four times and nearly take out the mail box once they'd finally spotted the right house.

“See, I told you I'd get us there.” Pietro smiled at her once he put the car in park. Wanda sighed and unbuckled her seat belt. “Next time, listen to the GPS instead of trying to break the speed limit.”

They sat in the car, looking at the cars that lined the street, all of them clearly belonging to party goers at the Stark residence. Wanda's stomach was doing back flips and she was regretting telling Maria that they'd attend the party (well, Pietro had mostly agreed that they'd go), the whole situation felt strange to her. At the last school she'd taught at before transferring to Xavier's, most of the teachers never invited her anywhere and she mostly hung around Pietro and the elderly math teacher who had a classroom next to hers. Knowing that this Tony Stark person had personally asked that she and her brother to attend an end of summer get together was something completely new to the both of them. So while Pietro had jumped at the chance to make a new name for himself, Wanda was more anxious than a sinner in a Catholic church on Easter.

“Well, party's not gonna bring itself to the car.” Pietro said. He looked over at Wanda, trying to look as cheerful as he could, “You ready to do this?”

She wanted to say no, but knew that he would argue and probably drag her inside the house or worse, bring someone out to meet her. She sighed and opened the car door, not bothering to reply to him. “I'll take that as a yes.” Pietro said as he followed her up the pathway to the front door.

She could hear some catchy pop song flooding through the door and the laughter of people coming from around the fence that lead to the backyard. Pietro knocked on the door before Wanda could get out a word of protest. They were promptly greeted by a tall slender black man. He smiled at them in and held out his hand.  
“Hi, I'm Sam Wilson.” he said, “You two must be the new teachers everyone's been so excited to meet.” Wanda shook his hand and stood patiently as Pietro shook his hand as well and introduced themselves.

“That'd be us. I'm Pietro Maximoff, and this is my sister Wanda.” he cracked his best 'we are gonna be great friends' smile and waited for Sam to reply. “Nice to meet you both. Come on in, everyone was starting to wonder when you two would show up.”

Wanda walked over the threshold and took a deep breath as she entered the house. No turning back now. She thought. They followed Sam out of the foyer were dozens of people were passing between the kitchen and living room. A few of the people looked up from their conversations and drinks watching as she and Pietro pass through. Wanda kept her gaze focused on the back of Sam's head as they walked through. She listened as Sam asked a few questions over his shoulder at she and her brother.

“So, what are you guys gonna be teaching?” Wanda spoke up before her brother did, not wanting to establish the impression of being the quiet field mouse. “I'll be teaching art. I heard that the last teacher retired last year.”

“Yeah, that was May Parker. She never even announced it to any of the other staff. We all found out via email.” Sam explained.

“I'm teaching that SAT prep class and coaching the track team.” Pietro added. Their guide let out a short laugh. “Well, let's hope you enjoy hours of workbooks and practice tests, cause that's all that class is.”

He stepped through a sliding door, which lead out into a back yard where some people were surrounding the pool and hot tub, while others tried to keep the more intoxicated away from the edge of the water. At the corner of the yard, there were strobe lights blinking at the beat of the music.  
“What idiot thought strobe lights would be a good idea?” she asked. “Some people have epilepsy.”

“Tell that to the host.” Sam said.

“Speaking of hosts,” the three of them turned to see a man dressed like Hugh Hefner's much younger brother striding towards them, with a plate of ribs held out in front of him. He was smiling at them, not in a friendly 'welcome to the party' way, but 'this is going to make a great story later on'. Just as Sam was about to open his mouth and introduce them both, the man pushed the plate of ribs onto him and walked right past him, almost as if he weren't there. “Hi, I'm Tony. Tony Stark. You may have heard of me, seeing as I was the one who invited you to this little soiree.”

Wanda tried not to roll her eyes at the statement. Instead she settled on a simple greeting and waited for Tony to continue the conversation. “So, you two must be the mystery twins everyone has been talking about,” he started. He shifted his gaze between the two of them, mostly ogling Pietro's hair, which was dyed silver.

Even though they were twins, the most defining feature that they both shared were their eyes and facial structure. They used to share the same dark brown hair as well, until Pietro had decided to dye it silver to honor his college nickname, Quicksilver, given to him due to the fact that he was the fastest runner on the track team. People would often mistake Pietro as just the older brother (which he technically was, he was older by twelve minutes) and would be shocked when they'd reveal that they were, in fact, twins.

“You two don't really look like twins.” Tony said. “We know.” They said in unison.

“We get that a lot.” Wanda finished. She crossed her hands over her chest, feeling uneasy about Tony. It wasn't enough that he had invited them to his party without so much as meeting them, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd heard his name sometime before, and there weren't any positive connotations connected to him as far as she could remember.

“Sorry, didn't mean to offend you.” Tony smiled. “The last twins I was with were, uh, well, you probably aren't interested in all that.” he waved his hands to the left, towards the hot tub. “You didn't come here to chat with me, so why don't you go and make yourselves comfortable. I'll be right over.” he grabbed the plate of ribs from Sam and quickly walked back through the sliding door.

“He's an interesting character.” Pietro said once Tony was out of earshot. “Yeah, that he is.” Sam said. “But don't worry, you'll get used to him. I sure as hell know it took me a while to realize he's just a fifteen year old trapped in a grown man's body.” Both men laughed at that, but Wanda couldn't seem to shake the feeling that she knew Tony from somewhere.

Sam said something that Wanda missed in her thoughts, and began to lead them over to the hot tub. Pietro took note of her disposition and placed a hand on her arm. “Cos'è?” _What is it?_ He asked in their first language, Italian. Wanda shook her head. “Nothing. It's fine. Just a little, nervous I guess.” she replied, not bothering to switch dialects. Pietro didn't looked convinced and stopped walking, causing her to hault too. “Are you sure?” She waved him off. “We'll talk later.”

Over at the hot tub, there was a cooler and a few lawn chairs that were currently occupied by people who were apparently glad for Sam's arrival. “Well look what the cat dragged in.” said one of the men. “These the two new guys?” he asked. “You seen em before?” Sam mocked. Everyone laughed and one of the guests even stood up to free up his seat for Wanda. She thanked him and grabbed a beer out of the cooler next to her and watched as her brother struck up a conversation with Sam and the man who had first greeted them.

“Wanda, Pietro, these are the few people that I can hang out with without pulling out my hair.” Sam said, introducing the guests around the hot tub. “This is Clint,Natasha,Steve and his girlfriend Peggy, Bruce, Phil and my girlfriend, Monica.”

“You've got quite a large friend circle.” Wanda said, taking a sip of her drink. “They all kinda flocked to me.” Sam replied.

“Course we did, you're like our mama bird who keeps everything together.” Phil said next to her. “Actually, I think that's Bruce.” Natasha sad. “Who knows what would happen to poor old Clint if Bruce weren't here.” Everyone cooed mockingly in Clint's direction and he flipped them off. Wanda couldn't help but laugh along with them. She'd only been there for two minutes and she'd received more of a warm welcome from people she'd never met than the teachers she'd worked with for four years at her old school. She was starting to think that maybe coming to this party wasn't such a bad idea after all.

“So, what's with the silver hair?” Clint asked Pietro. “Trying to make sure no one knows you're twins or what?”

Her brother let out a short laugh and answered him. “No. It's just a joke about my college nickname. They called me Quicksilver since I was the fastest runner.”  
“You've had your hair dyed like that since college?”

“No. Just since I left my old school. I decided it was time to take back my personality since I had to water it down to go to work.”

Natasha smirked. “Sounds like you worked for the KGB, not a high school.”

“Well it was the second closest thing to it.” Wanda spoke up, “Catholic School.” Everyone in the group collectively cringed. Peggy pulled a face that looked like she was going to puke. “You okay?” Steve asked her. She waved him off. “Yeah, it's just, I went to Catholic School and I can tell you one thing, it's worse to be a student than a teacher.”

“We know.” Pietro and Wanda said in unison. “We went to Catholic School when we lived in Italy.” Pietro finished. “You guys are Italian?” Natasha asked. She raised an eyebrow, clearly interested in hearing more about their lives in the country.“Yeah. Our mother is from there and we lived there up until we were thirteen. Went to Catholic school the whole time, so American public school was welcomed when we started high school.” Wanda explained.

“So Italian is you guy's first language?” Wanda and Pietro nodded. Natasha nodded and took a sip from her drink. Wanda could tell from her expression that she was thinking hard about something, but before she got a chance to ask, Tony walked into their group, with Maria in tow. Wanda was relieved to see a familiar face, even if she had only met her just a few hours ago.

“I see you guys have met the Mystery Twins.” he said. “Well, they're not really Mystery Twins anymore, but you get what I mean.”

“Yeah. We were having a civilized conversation before you showed up.” Clint scoffed. “Don't test the waters Barton, or you might end up in the pool.” Tony warned.

“Wouldn't mind that after today's heat.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I was just coming over to show our dearest Fraulein Maria how well you all play with the new kids.”

“If anyone needs to be shown how to play well with new kids, it's you Stark.” Maria retorted. She waved at the twins. “Sorry I wasn't here when you guys got here. I stopped at Sonic.”

“I thought Happy Hour ended already?” Phil asked.

“I keep coupons like Tony keeps his alcohol. Well stocked and always within reach.”

“Good analogy.” Monica said. Maria saluted her both in greeting and thanks.

“Okay, back to me now.” Tony announced. “Cause it's always gotta be about you.” Sam muttered. Whether Tony heard him or not, he ignored the comment. “I also came over here to show college nickname and his sister how things are done around here.”

“Tony...” Steve warned. “Don't worry, I'm not gonna haze them or anything. I wanna get payback on Parker for the whole Hot Hands thing.”

The words strung together were the most concerning that Wanda had heard in a while. “What the hell is Hot Hands?” she asked warily. “Something stupid that Tony can't get over because of his ego.” Steve said before anyone had the chance to explain.

“Sounds like fun.” Pietro said. Everyone looked at the silver haired twin. “What? I'm down for a good prank.”

“Oh this isn't a prank.” Tony started. “This is pure,undiluted, one hundred percent revenge on the scrawny kid standing with Blondie and Erkel.” he pointed over in the direction of the grill. Wanda leaned forward in her chair to see past Phil. The trio of young party goers looked innocent enough, which made Wanda question Tony's motives for wanting to get revenge on 'the scrawny kid', as he'd called him.

“Pietro,don't, this seems stupid.” Wanda said. “She's picking the right sides already and she's only been here fifteen minutes.” Natasha smiled. “I like you already.”

“If you knew Pietro as well as I do, you'd know that letting him out of sight where there is alcohol and large bodies of water is a bad idea.”

“Oh come on, that was one time!” her brother defended. “Doesn't matter what he did!” Tony shouted, causing scrawny kid by the grill to look over. Tony lowered his voice. “If he wants to help, he can. Any other volunteers before I go on with my master plan?” No one else said anything. The only response he got was a less than flattering remark relating to Tony's anatomy and pencils uttered by Phil.

“Alright, since none of you are man enough to join me,”

“Strength isn't measured by how much testosterone you've got in your veins.” Maria said.

“Pietro and I will be off now to discuss my brilliant plan.” The two men walked away from the group.

Wanda slid down in her chair and groaned loudly. “Dumb ass.” she muttered. “Language.” Steve chided. Without meaning to, Wanda stuck her middle finger up at him. She immediately pulled her hand back and rushed apology. The blond didn't look offended, but rather shocked and confused, while Peggy was laughing her head off beside him and was quickly joined by the rest of the group.

“Don't worry,” Natasha started, “Steve's gotten worse for his censorship. You should have seen the mom who went off on him last year at parent teacher conferences.”

“Honey, based on what I've seen in the past few minutes, I think you're gonna fit in fine, and I don't even work here.” Monica said, wiping a tear from her eye.

Wanda felt heat rising to her face. While she felt guilty for unintentionally giving the bird to someone she'd just met, she couldn't help but let out a little laugh with everyone else. She began to wonder if every staff get together was like this and was eager to see how everyone worked together once the school year actually started.

“Sorry about pulling a 'language' on you.” Steve apologized. “It just slipped.” Wanda smiled at him. “It's fine. I guess we both slipped up.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something else, but was cut off by the sound of footsteps pounding on the ground and someone with a distinct Italian accent screaming, “HOT HANDS TWO POINT OH!” Wanda whipped her head around just in time to see her brother running across the the backyard with sparklers in hand, wearing nothing but swim trunks.

“Oh fuck.” Steve said.

“Steve said a bad word!” Maria shouted, pointing at him like a tattle telling toddler.

The next events passed in a blur that Wanda would remember for a very, very long time. Her swim trunk and sparklers clad brother did a lap around the pool, which was just enough time for everyone still inside the house to come outside, and when he circled back around, he ran full speed at scrawny kid by the grill, dropped the sparklers, grabbed him and threw him into the pool.  
“PIETRO!” Wanda shouted at the top of her lungs. She stomped over to the pool, everyone moving out of the way so not to be caught in her death march. Pietro turned tail and ran around the pool again. “Che diavolo stai facendo?!” _What the hell are you doing?_ Wanda made a silent remark about how much she sounded like her mother had so many times before in their childhood as she yelled at her brother.

Down in the pool, the poor victim of Tony's sick plan was grabbing the edge of the pool and waiting for someone to help him out. Another burly blond knelt down and took his hand. Once he was out, he looked across the pool, glaring at Pietro. “My headphones were in my pocket asshole!”

Suddenly, Tony appeared from the other end of the crowd, a phone outstretched in his hand and his face red from laughter. “Say hi to the camera Parker! I'm sending this to Aunt May in Florida!” Scrawny kid, or Parker, said nothing and pushed through the crowd, reentering the house, with the blond girl and young black man rushing after him.

“Nice going Stark.” Clint fumed from behind Wanda. “Yeah, but let's see how this next stunt goes down in the 'Barton Book of Blunders'.” Tony said. No one had time to register what he meant before there was the grunt from Clint and a splash from the pool, sending waves of water crashing over Wanda and a couple other unfortunate party guests. This time, Pietro had gone down with his victim, putting those swim trunks to good use. He was cracking up while Clint was thrashing in the water next to him as he tried to grab onto the edge of the pool.

“You didn't see that coming?” Pietro called from the water once Clint was out.

“Speedy little bastard!” Clint yelled.

For whatever reason, everyone took 'speedy little bastard' as an invitation to join her brother in the pool. Wanda had to practically jump back to avoid being splashed a second time. When everyone courageous enough (or drunk enough) was in the pool, Wanda joined Clint and everyone else in her original group in the house. Someone had managed to find a few towels and was passing them around. Wanda grabbed one and dried herself the best she could.

“Three strikes in one day for the 'Barton Book of Blunders'.” Phil said. “Fuck off.” Clint muttered.

“I'm sorry about my brother.” Wanda spoke up. “He's a fucking idiot.”

“You don't have to apologize for him.” Clint said. “You did try to stop him before Tony got a hold of him and that gives you a check for life in my book.”  
Wanda smiled at him. “Graci.”

“I'm assuming that's 'thank you'.” he laughed. “Well at least now I'll have a legitimate reason to tear Stark's arm off.”

“Maybe I can finally get some extra money after tonight.” Wanda said. “What makes you think that?” Sam asked.

“Life insurance policies are high as shit nowadays and I'm really considering life without a twin.”


	3. Messin' With Freshmen

Everyone always joked about Natasha being able to hold down enough vodka to sedate a bull elephant because of her Russian heritage. She thought it was all bullshit, she'd met plenty of Russians that would be down and out two glasses in. But she still thanked whatever the ancient Russian god of drinking was for blessing her with such a high tolerance for alcohol. She still woke up with a hangover the next morning, but nothing that would put her out of commission for the freshman orientation.

While she would have preferred to sleep in like any other sane adult with a hangover during the middle of a heat wave, she dragged herself out of bed at the sinfully early time of six-fifteen to be sure she'd have plenty of time to get ready and take enough Alka Seltzer before arriving at work.

Thanks to Tony's party being the night before the frustrating parts of the beginning of the year, (and the fact that it was just seven twenty when she arrived) the parking lot was still bare as bones when she pulled in, which was lucky for her, she found a spot right under the giant maple tree, assuring that she'd have shade throughout the day. The only other cars there were those belonging to Fury, Maria and one other that she didn't recognize. She figured it had to belong to one of the twins.

Once inside the building, Natasha headed straight for the school's auditorium, where Maria would no doubt be starting setup for the standard freshman powerpoint presentation. Surely enough, the Slushie Queen herself was there running through slides on the huge projector screen on the stage.

“Guten tag Fraulein.” she called from the back of the auditorium. Maria turned and gave a quick wave before returning to her slides. Natasha walked and joined her on the stage. “You need me to help with anything? God knows no one else who was at the party is gonna be sober enough to be of much use.”

“Funny that you say that, cause I'm hungover enough to make Jack Daniels dizzy.” Maria said. “But yeah, I do need you to run an errand for me, cause Fury's got me neck deep in to-dos.”

“Doesn't involve me going in the hot as balls office does it?” Natasha asked.

“No. The district sent some guys and they're working on it now, so Fury wants everyone to stay out of their way. I just need you to go to the twins and give em a rundown of how things are gonna go.” Natasha had to hold back her scoff. An easy errand was a pretty good way to start off the busiest day at the start of the year, aside from the first day itself.

“Easy enough. What're their room numbers?”

“Last I saw, they were both in the art room, and that was about fifteen minutes ago, so they're probably still there.” Maria said as she clicked past a slide on how to handle yourself when in the halls (complete with a meme of Mr. Moseby saying 'no running in my lobby').

“Shouldn't be that much of a bother though. I sent them most of the information they needed a couple of weeks ago, but I figured having someone guide them along wouldn't be too bad either.”

“No problem.” Natasha jumped down from the stage and exited the auditorium.

The walk from to the art room was a short one considering that it was right around the corner from where she had just left. Sure enough, the art room door was open and she could hear music filtering into the hallway. When she looked inside the room though, the only twin in the room was Wanda. She knocked on the door frame before entering. Wanda looked up and waved at her in greeting. Natasha walked into the room and waited as Wanda paused the music on her computer.

“Where's your brother?” she asked.

“He just went to go check out the gym. Couldn't have gotten too far cause we drove here together. Did Maria send you?”

“Yeah. She wanted me to give you all a walk through of how the day is gonna go. She said you all got most of the information already though.”

Wanda nodded. “She emailed us back before we got here with this huge schedule for the year, mostly highlighting all of the upcoming stuff.” the twin let out a short laugh before continuing. “Would have been nice for her to include 'frat house party' in the list of events.”

Natasha smiled at her. “A warning for Stark in general would have been appreciated when I started here.”

“Maybe we can get one for my brother too while we're at it.” Wanda said.

They stood across from each other awkwardly. Even after the way-past-casual introduction they'd had last night, it felt strange to be in such a professional space after the party.

Natasha cleared her throat. “But yeah, Hill just wanted me to swing by and tell you what was happening today.”

“My own little orientation. Should we wait for Pietro or just get to it?” Wanda asked.

“We can walk down to the gym if you'd like. Might be good for you know your way around before the kids barge in here and it seems even bigger than it actually is.”

Wanda nodded. “Lead the way.” They walked out the room and started the distance to the gym, Natasha explaining the events of the day as they went. “Things will start in the auditorium where Maria's gonna give a powerpoint on all the important things. That's always a breeze. Then they'll be broken into groups by alphabetical order and go around the school to be shown all the important spots.”

“Maria mentioned that I'd probably be with Doctor Banner's group.” Wanda spoke up.

“Yeah, Bruce usually gets the newer teachers to tag along with him. He's just an easy guy to hang with and manages to not lose his head with the students.” Calling Bruce 'easygoing' was a bit of an understatement. The guy had the most leveled head of anyone that Natasha had ever worked with. He even gave the Russian ballet studio that she'd worked for years ago a run for its money. Between hanging out with Tony's ego, Darcy's paparazzi personality and Clint's overall lack of togetherness made her wonder how he hadn't blown a fuse yet.

“That was the curly haired guy at the party right?” Wanda asked.

“Yeah, that's him.”

They passed through the main lobby. There were workmen working on one of the vents, surely fixing the air conditioning in the office as Maria had said. Wanda eyed the poorly colored school mascot and shuddered. “Whose wise idea was it to put those colors on a phoenix?” she asked.

“Trust me, all of us have asked that same question at one point or another.” Natasha assured her. They continued the rest of the passing information about the orientation and when they finally arrived at the gym, it was empty. Wanda let out a frustrated groan. “Oh where the hell is he now?” As if in response to her question, Wanda's phone went off in her pocket. She took it out and read a message that flashed across the screen, and somehow let out a more frustrated groan than the previous one.

“Where'd he go?” Natasha asked.

“Dunkin Donuts.” Wanda said. “He could have at least gone the extra three minutes to Starbucks, Dunkin is shit.”

“If he wanted coffee, he should have waited for Stark to get here.” “After last night I think we need to put a restraining order on those two.” Wanda sighed and turned to Natasha. “Now what?”

“All Maria wanted me to do was tell you the order of the day. But I need to get to my class and finish up a few things before the day really kicks into gear.” Wanda nodded. “I guess I should do the same. God knows I need get some work done to avoid beating up my brother whenever he gets back.” They turned and walked back towards the art room, meeting Peter as they passed down the hallway with his classroom. Wanda gave him a quick apology on behalf of her brother. The young teacher tried to not look angry, but it was clear to see that he was still pissed about the party (and Natasha couldn't really blame him).

As they rounded the corner to the arts and sciences hallway, Wanda spoke up, “You all aren't always the way you were last night, are you?” Natasha rolled her lip, thinking of the best way to answer her. True, everyone on staff had their own personal bag of cats that aided to the school's craziness as a whole, but it was never as bad at school as it was at events like the one last night. Everyone took their job seriously during hours and, although no one would ever admit it to each other, they often preferred it when everyone was in teacher mode instead of drunken idiot mode.

“Last night was just the last true act of summer vacation, if you want to call it that.” Natasha said, “Things can get a little crazy around here sometimes, but we all take our jobs seriously. You should see how Darcy gets when someone tells her that her job isn't doing anything for the students.”

“What does she teach?”

“She's the theater teacher. Don't worry, you'll get to know her pretty well come October.” The approached the art room door and Wanda began to unlock it. “School play I'm assuming.” she said. “Musical actually. The bigger the shows the bigger the sets.”

“Nothing that I can't handle.” Wanda smiled at her. She stepped inside her room, “I guess I should get to work now. See you later then.” Natasha gave a quick wave and started around the corner.

* * *

 

 Natasha had almost pushed the events with Wade and the bookshelf out of her head completely, until she arrived on the second floor. Waiting down the hall, just outside of her door, was none other than the substitute. She tried not to groan when she saw him. She started down the hallway and when she reached her class, she addressed him the best she could without adding in a swear word between every other word.

“Morning Wade.” she said flatly.

“Hey, I was just stopping by apologize for yesterday.” he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. She'd known Wade for seven years and admitting his faults was not something she'd known him to do. Even after he had set Clint's desk on fire, he hadn't apologized, but instead sent Clint his Doctor's Care bill (he only got a first degree burn and his insurance covered it, but Wade insisted that he be compensated for his injuries). Natasha concluded that he had to be up to something.

“Well I appreciate it.” she said. “Glad to hear that you're learning some humility.”

Wade's face broke into a toothy grin, which quickly faded into a puzzled expression. “Humility is a good thing right?” he asked.

Natasha smirked. “It's a good thing Steve's never out, or else his AP kids would be doomed.” she unlocked her room door. “Thanks for apologizing. See you later Wade.” she began to close the door, but Wade stuck his toe in the way and it was smashed between the door frame. He hissed a swear under his breath, but continued on.

“Glad to hear this is all washed over.” he smiled. “So, do you need help with anything?”

“No thanks. I got this.” she shut the door and ignored his reply on the other side. After a moment's silence, she finally heard Wade's footsteps go down the hall. She sighed and flicked on the lights. The bookshelf was back in its original place and the books had been thrown back on the shelves in a hassle yesterday as Natasha had been rushing to get home as soon as possible.

She checked the clock on the wall, a quarter til eight, meaning that anyone still at home had just under fifteen minutes to get to work before Fury went on a Crusade and two hours before the freshmen arrived. In all honesty, she had nothing to work on. She always made it her top priority to get all of her work done on the first day back so that way she wouldn't have to stay late and miss any of Tony's party or rush to work the day of orientation. Since the school was still mostly empty, as far as she knew, she decided to put her free time to good use. She pulled out her phone and sent a message to Clint, knowing that if Bruce hadn't texted him already, then he was still face down in bed or breaking speed limits to get here.

_Natasha: You better be up._

_Clint: I am. I actually remembered to set an alarm._

She raised an eyebrow. Impressive for someone who usually used the sounds of his neighbors sexual fantasies as a wake up call.

_Natasha: Hurry up and get here. Wade tried to help me again and one of the twins has gone missing in action._

_Clint: Already? Maybe it was Parker getting revenge for last night._

Natasha let out a laugh at the reply. They had met Parker on the way back from the gym, maybe he had Pietro tied up in his supply closet and had him text Wanda as a cover. One thing was for certain, Darcy was going to have a field day with everything that went on last night, and she sure as hell wasn't going to let the twins or Peter forget about it.

_Natasha: Who knows? All the weird stuff that happens here, Quicksilver going missing would be another great mystery to start the year off with._

_Clint: More like Dicksilver._

_Natasha: Just hurry up and get here. We can talk shitty co-workers later._

Clint replied with a thumbs up emoticon and she locked her phone. She checked the clock again, exactly ten minutes to eight. The good thing about the time was that it meant ten more minutes before she actually had to get up and help Maria prepare for orientation. The bad thing was that she had absolutely no way to spend her ten minutes. She had half a mind to grab the mug she always kept in her desk drawer and head down to Stark-bucks, but she knew that the chances of Tony arriving on time the day of orientation was slim to none. Social media was out of the question, reception in the school was terrible, mostly to discourage students from using phones during class, and the school wifi blocked all of the good websites (although there was the one time last year when Tony took down the firewall and the freshmen had a field day on Tumblr).

Just as she was considering going back downstairs to talk to Wanda, there was a knock at her door.

“Who is it?” she asked. _Please don't be Fix it Felix..._

Thankfully, the voice that replied sounded much too old and much deep to be Wade.

“Just your friendly neighborhood physics teacher.” Bruce replied.

She rolled her eyes. “It's open.” The door opened, and Bruce stepped inside,toting two small Dunkin Donuts coffees.

“I thought you hated Dunkin's coffee.” she said.

“I hate everything at Dunkin,” Bruce answered. “But I had a buy one get one coupon and I didn't have time to make a pot before I left home.”

“You do realize that there's a Starbucks right around the corner, right?”

“I didn't have a coupon for Starbucks.” He chuckled, handing her a cup of coffee. She took it, giving a quick thanks as Bruce sat down in one of the desks, as out of place as an elephant in a murder of crows.

“Well doc, you've saved me twice so far this morning and it's not even eight o'clock yet.” she said, taking a sip of the bitter drink. Bruce raised an eyebrow. “And how exactly did I manage to do that with a cup of shitty coffee?”

“For starters, you brought me free coffee. Shitty coffee, but free.”

“Wasn't free for me.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and continued. “Secondly, there's like ten minutes to spare before Fury hunts everyone down and I've got nothing to do.”

“Why don't you go help Maria?” he started. “She looked pretty busy when I dropped by the auditorium".

“Already did. She wanted me to give the twins a run down for the day.” she answered.

“And how did that go?”

Natasha took another sip of coffee before answering him. It may have been shitty coffee, but it was enough to wake her up and shake off the last remnants of her hangover. She set her cup down and continued. “Speedy bastard has gone AWOL.” Bruce laughed into his drink. “You think Peter had anything to do with it?”

“Clint's already got him down as a prime suspect.”

“Darcy's gonna have a field day when she gets here.” Bruce scoffed. “Only the second day back and we've got two new kids, two near drownings, a food fight, and one missing person. I think this beats out the year that dog got loose in the cafeteria.”

“No one's had a rabies scare yet, so I guess you're right.” Natasha said. “Yet?” Bruce asked.

“Weird shit always manages to happen here.” she answered. She checked the clock again, the second hand was ticking closer to signaling five minutes to eight. Natasha sighed and tossed back the last of her coffee. “Well I guess we should at least,” her sentence was cut short by a sudden commotion over the PA system.

“If anyone is harboring Speedy Little Bastard, I suggest you fess up now or get the nastiest firewall put up on your computer.” Tony's voice rang out across the school. “Oh god,” Bruce sighed. “You've got until my coffee is done brewing to hand him over. That's roughly three minutes.” the system clicked off. Natasha turned to Bruce. “You know what he's up to?”

“Knowing Tony, he probably wants to give him a check for helping him traumatize Peter and Clint last night.” Bruce said.

“Sounded more like a bounty hunt than a reward.” Natasha said. Bruce got out of the desk and started towards the door. He turned and looked at Natasha, “You coming?”

“Hell no. After yesterday, the last thing I need is to be caught in the middle of one of Tony's schemes again.” She knew that Tony's plan would probably be stamped out once Fury got a hold of him, but she didn't want to have a repeat of yesterday's lunch either. Bruce shrugged his shoulders. “Fair enough. I'll see you later.” he passed through the doorway and vanished around the corner. Natasha pulled her phone out of her pocket again and sent a quick message to Clint.  _Tony's on the hunt for Pietro. Get here in three minutes if you wanna hunt him down._

_Clint: I just pulled into the parking lot. Let the speedy bastard hunting commence._

She snorted a laugh at his reply. Clint always tried to act like he was above petty payback towards other co-workers, but had Pietro not taken him down in the pool last night, he would have been laughing right along with Tony and the rest of the guests.

The PA system sounded off again. “If any of you help Stark, I will make sure you have Saturday detention duty for the entire first semester.” Fury's voice said sternly. Natasha knew that if Clint heard the message, he was quickly changing routes to get to his room as quickly as possible. After a minute, there was a shuffle over the PA speakers for a third time, but this time, it was Darcy who had a message. “Tony locked Bruce and Fury out of the office! Send help! The AC is still busted cause I just flat ironed my hair!”

“Can we just have a normal day for once?” Natasha turned and saw Clint walking through the doorway.

“We work with a bunch of adults who act like The Plastics.” she said. Clint shrugged his shoulders. “Got me there. We're only two days in and things have already gone to hell. Makes me wonder how the rest of the year is gonna go.”

All the teachers knew that the crazier the days before the official start of the school year were, the worse the school year itself was going to be. Everyone jokingly called it 'The Charles Xavier Cruse', named after the founder of the school, and that it would be lifted once Stan finally retired. Natasha always brushed it off as one of the many running jokes at the school, but she couldn't deny that there was some connection between the fact that the year Hot Hands happened, Tony had managed to knock out the power on the third floor for a week. “Well I'm not getting caught up in whatever's happening.” She got up from her desk chair and tossed her coffee cup into the trash. “I thought you hated Dunkin?” Clint asked. “Yeah. But Bruce brought it by and it would've been a shame to pass up free coffee.”

“Can't call you on that one.” he laughed. Natasha started towards the door and down the hall, Clint following closely behind her. “You don't have anything to work on or print out before heading down?” she asked when she noticed him following her.

“Yeah, but I saw Jasper carrying some banners on my way up here and I'm scared to find out what meme is on there.”

* * *

 

 The office was a mad house. Darcy was shouting at Tony, demanding that he leave and let Bruce and Nick back in. The workmen had been locked out as well and needed to get into the office to unblock the vents. The phones were ringing off the hook due to staff members calling in with excuses as to why they'd be late (they always tried to pull the 'I had a flat tire' or 'my neighbor needed my help with something' card, but in truth everyone was still trying to work off their hangovers). Had it not been for the blazing heat and lack of coffee, Sam might have been able to handle the situation.

He had locked himself away in his office in hopes that everything would smooth itself over, but after five minutes of bickering, ringing phones, sweaty arm pits and Fury hammering on the door, Sam had had enough. He sprung from his chair and threw the door open, just in time to see Tony standing on Maria's desk shouting something at Bruce on the other side of the window that opened into the school's foyer. The doctor looked as close to angry as Sam had ever seen him. Fury on the other hand was fuming. Sam walked past Darcy who had been standing outside his office door and grabbed the hem of Tony's shirt, yanking him down off the desk.

“Look man, it's too fucking hot to be dealing with your childish bullshit.” Sam spat. “Yesterday was already pushing the limits on how much shit I can handle from you, but this is enough.” He released Tony and walked over to the door, unlocking it to let everyone back in. Fury went right to work shouting at Tony, the workmen tried not to look uncomfortable and got right to work.

Bruce on the other hand stopped and placed a hand on Sam's shoulder. “Thanks Sam.” he said.

“Yeah, no problem. I wasn't gonna sit here much longer and get a headache before the day even starts.” Sam said.

The two stood and watched as Tony tried to defend himself with a very poor argument. Sam rolled his eyes so hard he thought they were going to fall out. “What's with him today?” he asked. “And what does he need Pietro for? Cause if it's another stunt like last night then we might have to fire one of them before the year even starts.”

“Well if it does come down to that, fire Tony.” Bruce started. “He's got enough money to get by.”

Sam knew that he was joking. He and Tony were as good of friends as he and Steve were, and while Same didn't want to admit it, work would be pretty dull if it weren't for Tony, it was just that whenever he started to act out, he began to seriously question why he hung out with him in the first place.

“I don't even know what he wants Pietro for. Door was locked by the time I got down here.” Bruce said. Sam sighed.

“Well let's hope whatever it is doesn't interfere with the rest of the day, because I can only handle so much crazy before nine o'clock.”

Darcy walked over to them and ran a hand through her hair. “Well looks like we've got a new record for how fast things got to hell here.” she said. “And usually it's Clint that screws the pooch. First time for everything I guess.”

“What were you even doing in here?” Sam asked.

“Oh, I was just coming to see if there were any doughnuts in the mail room.” she explained. “Hadn't planned on being dragged into all this.” she waved her hands around in a grand gesture. “Well, I better get something done before all the freshies get here.” she walked past them, sighing loudly in relief as she stepped into the air conditioned space. Just as Darcy was out of sight, Fury let up on Tony. “It's too damn early for this Stark. Just get back to work. I'll handle you later.” he fumed. He turned and walked towards the back of the office where his office was located.

Tony sighed loudly and turned to Sam and Bruce. “Since the three minutes is up, I guess I’ll go and find the speedy bastard myself.” he said walking past them. Bruce rolled his eyes.

“If he weren’t the only other person here interested in in astrophysics I’d probably question why I’m friends with him.”

“I just like his parties.” Sam scoffed. The phone rang again from Sam’s office. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to get back to work. See you later doc.”

“Is he gone?” Sam and Bruce turned around to see Pietro poking his head into the doorway. Bruce quickly ushered him into the office, he was holding a box of doughnuts and two coffees from Dunkin. “Dude, there’s a Starbucks and Krispie Kreme not even half a mile from Dunkin.” Sam said.

“What? I like Dunkin.” Pietro smiled.

“More on the doughnut situation later,” Bruce spoke up, “Why was Tony looking for you?”

Pietro tried to hide the smirk that was making its way across his face. “Oh that, that’s over something I said before I left to get doughnuts.”

“Oh lord.” Sam said to himself. As if Tony weren’t enough, Sam could already tell that Pietro was going to add into the egomaniac clique at Xavier’s. Hopefully whatever had gone down between the two of them would stay between them and not flood into the rest of their lives, but the past couple of minutes were already proving otherwise.

“What did you do?” Bruce asked, sounding mildly concerned. The twin shrugged his shoulders. “Just a witty comeback, nothing too serious.” he said.

“Well Tony thinks it’s serious enough to lock our boss and the nicest guy on the job out of the office.” Sam said.

“You really think I’m the nicest guy on the job?” Bruce asked.

“It’s a tie between you and Steve, but you tolerate Tony and Wade more, so you get the title.” he said.

Bruce nodded. “Fair enough.” the physics teacher turned back to Pietro. “What exactly did you say? Tony handles comebacks about as well as a snowman handles heat.”

“Good analogy.” one of the workmen called over their shoulder.

“Well, I stopped by there when I was leaving to go to Dunkin and we started joking about that Peter kid from last night and Clint.” Pietro started. “I don’t know how, but the conversation got a little, well, below the belt.” Sam rolled his eyes. Conversations with Tony turning from mundane to perverse was something as expected as rain in the Amazon. He could only imagine how Pietro and Tony had managed to get from pranking their co-workers to whatever led to what he was about to say next. “He joked about me coming as fast as I run and I just took it a step further and said he wished he could pull out as fast as I could run.” One of the workmen snickered at the response and quickly tried to cover it up by coughing. Bruce just sighed, patted Pietro on the shoulder and walked in the direction towards Tony’s room.

Sam stayed and looked Pietro right in the eye. “Look, I’m not cool with what you two did to Parker or Barton last night, but I will admit, that was a good one liner.” Pietro smiled. “But,” Sam continued, “For the sake of everyone’s sanity and your computer’s safety,” Pietro knit his eyebrows together in confusion. “You’ll figure it out later,” Sam said. “I suggest you try to not screw around with him, at least until you get the swing of how everyone works around here.”

“So like that hierarchy thing he was explaining to me last night?” Pietro asked. Sam threw up his hands.

“Yeah, sure. Why the hell not. Just try to take it easy.”

“I can do that.” Pietro said. He opened up the box of doughnuts.

“Here, have one as my way of saying ‘sorry for pissing off the biggest egomaniac at work’.” Sam, much like all of the other Xavier’s staff, preferred Krispie Kreme to Dunkin, but he couldn’t pass up free sweets, especially after the morning he’d been having. He grabbed a pink frosted doughnut and thanked Pietro before turning to go back to his office.

The phone beeped with about six different voicemails, and he considered just sending out a mass email telling everyone to hurry the hell up and get there. Just as he felt another bout of frustration coming on from the phone ringing and the heat, there was a rattle in the vents followed by a blast of cold air filling his office. He heard Fury shout, “It’s about damn time!” from his office at the back and smiled to himself as he enjoyed his doughnut. It may have been a shitty morning so far and a shitty doughnut, but at least he could cross pit stains off of his list of worries for the day. 

* * *

 

Wanda had been through freshman orientations before, but this one made her feel like she was in way over her head. She stood in the bus lot with several of her new co-workers ushering students into the cafeteria entrance as they arrived, some by car and some by school bus, walking past her to enter the school. Watching the students arrive was like watching a never ending clown car, just when she thought the last of them had arrived, more would be there within a few minutes to fill their place.

“Is this really the entire freshman class?” she asked Bruce who was standing next to her.

“The head count from the eighth graders last year was about two fifty, so yeah, this is all of them.” he said before calling for a pair of freshmen to put their phones away. “School year hasn't even started and you're already on the no phone rule?” she scoffed.

“I just don't want them to lose anything. We always end up with a bunch of lost stuff at the end of orientation.” He stopped again to warn yet another student to put an iPad away (what kid brought a five hundred dollar tablet to a freshman orientation?). Somehow the kid managed to fit the entire thing in his pants pockets and continued along with the rest of his classmates.

At long last, the final wave of students arrived and entered the school. Wanda followed closely behind Bruce as they walked into the auditorium. The middle section of seat were filled and the teachers were patrolling at the ends of the rows to catch any uncouth behavior. She caught a glimpse of her brother on the other side of the auditorium with Steve. Pietro caught noticed her watching him and gave her a thumbs up. She knew he wouldn't do anything after the fiasco that had happened in the main office, but she didn't want to test her luck.

Wanda and Bruce paced around the students twice before the lights started to dim and the projector screen rolled down over the stage. “We can sit right here.” Bruce whispered as the students began to quiet down. They slid into a row and sat, patiently awaiting the time for the tours to start. Maria walked onto the stage with Jasper and Principal Fury, looking as welcoming as she'd seen him despite what had happened that morning. He rattled on and on about welcoming the freshman and how exciting their first year of high school was going to be. After Fury's speech, that lasted much longer than it should have, he left the stage and handed the floor over to Maria and Jasper who were going through the slideshow filled with an embarrassing amount of memes.

“Whose idea was it to use the Legolas meme?” she whispered to Bruce.

He let out a soft chuckle. “Probably Jasper. He thinks they help him connect with the kids.”

“Someone should tell him to water it down.”

The slide show presentation dragged on for a few minutes more before the lights came back up. “Now, the part I'm sure all of you are the most excited for,” Maria said. The students began to stir a bit. Whispers broke out amongst the crowd as the highly anticipated tour was finally upon them. Maria quickly continued before she lost complete control over the students.“Before you get too crazy, we're going to be breaking you up in alphabetical order.” All of the students seemed to let out a single groan at the thought of being separated from their friends, even if it was just for an hour.

“Vice Principal Sitwell will tell you what teachers you'll be with, so pay attention and organize yourselves the best you can. I'll see all of you back here at the end of the tour.” Maria walked off the stage, leaving Jasper standing there, looking much too ready to just get this over with.

“All students with the last names A through C, go to Ms. Munroe and Ms. Stacy!” he pointed towards a black woman that Wanda hadn't seen before and the blond girl who was with Peter last night at the party standing towards the front of the crowd. The students hustled towards their guides and out of the auditorium. Jasper continued on and on and students continued to leave with teachers.

“P through R, go with Mr. Rogers and Coach Maximoff.” Wanda saw Pietro and Steve leave with perhaps one of the biggest group of students yet. “Steve must be pretty good at this if he's got the biggest group.” Wanda said.

Bruce nodded. “He got the nomination for Teacher of the Year last year. He's one of the best teachers we've got here.”

“What does he teach?”

“English. His AP scores are to envy.”

“Students S through U,” Jasper called out. “That's our cue.” Bruce said, standing up. “Go with Doctor Banner and Ms. Maximoff.” The number of students that got up and walked towards them wasn't nearly as large as Steve and Pietro's group, but Wanda still felt goosebumps as the thirty or so freshmen crowded around them. “Alright, everyone stick close to me and Ms. Maximoff.” Bruce said. “First stop is the arts and sciences hall.” Most of the students seemed to be eyeing Wanda more than Bruce.

“Let's get a move on.” Bruce turned and led their group out of the auditorium and down the hall where Wanda's classroom was located. They paused in front of the door to the art room and Bruce began to give them descriptions of each of the rooms on the hall.

“This is where all of you who are taking any visual or performing arts will be. And of course all of you will end up here eventually if you're taking physics or you're really insane AP physics.”

“I think my sister was in your class last year.” one girl spoke up from the back of the group. “

“What was her name?” Bruce asked her.

“Kayla. I think she got you to write her college recommendation.”

Bruce smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I remember her. Is she still majoring in astrophysics?”

“Uh huh. I told her I'd say hi for her today.”

“Well let her know that I'm proud of her and wish her the best of luck.”

Wanda thought about some of the students from her old job that had begged her to stay or keep in touch after she's announced that she and Pietro would be leaving at the end of last year. She had exchanged Twitter handles with a few of her favorite students (some had asked if she had a Tumblr, but she wouldn't dare risk the chance of them seeing the posts she'd made about some of her least favorite students). She had to admit that it was hard to leave the students that she had grown so attached to, especially the juniors who were adamant on her coming to see them graduate next year, but it had been her time to move on.

“...and right here is my classroom if any of you want to come and visit me during the day.” Bruce's voice snapped her back to attention. He was pointing at the classroom that was right across the hall from her's. She hadn't even noticed that the name card on the wall under the room number read 'Dr. Bruce Banner' in neat letters when she'd arrived earlier that morning.

“You wanna show off your room Ms. Maximoff?” Bruce asked her, trying to get her to be active in the tour. She took a deep breath. “If any of you are going to be taking art this year, then you can find me right there.” she pointed towards her classroom (which wasn't in the cleanest condition right now).

“Your name is Maximoff too?” another student asked.

“Yes.” she replied. “Was that Coach Maximoff guy your husband?”

Wanda nearly choked on her words. “Oh god no” she rushed, trying not to say 'fuck no' “That's my twin brother. No Lannister conspiracy here.”

“Let's continue on with the tour.” Bruce said loudly. “Any of you in band? Cause we're onto the music hall next.” He turned and led the students down the hall. Wanda picked up her pace to avoid being caught in the middle of the students.

“You handled that pretty good.” Bruce said quietly.

“Yeah, it's not the first time a student's thought that about us.” she said. “At least this time they didn't ask if we actually acted like the Lannisters.”

* * *

 

Pietro tried loved every student that he'd ever had with without judgement, even the one junior who always wore shoes that scuffed the gym floor, but the Xavier freshmen were a whole different level than what he'd dealt with before. He always tried to not judge the freshmen on how they behaved at orientation and the first day. Starting high school was an exciting and scary time, he always gave them some leeway at the beginning of the year. But after one lost student, four Tin Man related hair jokes and, their favorite, 'Maximon, Maximoff' joke, Pietro was damn near losing it. Luckily, Steve had a higher tolerance than he did and was able to rally the students together, it never lasted for long, but it got them from each stop to the next alright.

They were in the gym, the last stop on their tour, when a blond kid wearing one of those atrocious 'Cool Story Babe. Go Make Me A Sandwich' t-shirts said something that pushed both him past the point of no return.

“Did any of you see that girl with the brown hair in the red dress earlier?” he said to his buddy in a Denver Broncos jersey. Pietro turned his attention to the boy, as far as he'd seen, none of the other lady teachers were wearing red, they were talking about Wanda.

“Yeah. Why?” Broncos asked.

“Anything you want to share with the rest of the group?” Steve called, stopping in the middle of his speech about rules of the gymnasium.

The first boy smirked and opened his mouth to say something, but Broncos kid elbowed him in the ribs, silencing him. Steve gave the boys a warning look and continued on with his lecture. Pietro on the other hand, stared the two boys down with like a hawk. He hadn't noticed that Steve was calling his name until he snapped his fingers in front of his face. Pietro came to attention and noticed that the students were now milling around the gymnasium aimlessly, waiting for Maria to announce of the PA system that it was time to come back to the auditorium.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

“That kid was saying something about Wanda.” Pietro said bitterly. Steve looked over at the Cool Story kid who was sitting in the bleachers, surrounded by other students and talking loudly about some event that had happened over the summer.

“I know that kid.” Steve said. “I taught his older brother last year and he was a pain, I'm assuming that he's no better.”

“What's his name?” Pietro asked.

“Alec Quinton.”

Pietro made a silent note to look for a Alec Quinton on his roster when all of the students left. It was going against his mantra to judge students before he actually got to know him, but as the saying goes; you only get once to make a first impression, and so far the one Alec made on Pietro wasn't going so well.

Static started over the PA system and Maria's voice rung out across the school. “All students and staff are to return to the auditorium.” The freshmen began to file themselves together without having Steve or Pietro to tell them to. “Make sure you have everything or else you won't get it back until the weekend is over.” Steve said. They waited a few moments more for a few stragglers to group together and then headed out, Pietro standing at the back of the group to make sure no one wandered off (he didn't want a repeat of what happened on the second floor in the girl's bathroom).

As they were passing through the cafeteria to enter the auditorium, another group of freshmen came into view, led by Wanda and Bruce. Pietro was relieved to see that she and the doctor were chatting casually, looking as if they'd had a much easier tour than he and Steve. His cool mood melted away when Alec did a very poor job of whispering to his Broncos fan friend.

“Dude, that's the chick I was talking about,” he said. “She's fucking hot.”

“Nice.” Broncos. “You think she's an upper-hey!” Pietro seized both boys by the collars of their shirts and pulled them out of the group. They struggled against his grip, but to no avail. He dragged them over to a table and thrust them out in front of him.

“Do you two have any idea who you're talking about?” Pietro demanded. Neither boy answered him. “That’fucking hot chick’ is a teacher.” Alec flushed deep red. “I-I didn’t know.” he stammered. “That’s not the point.” Pietro fumed. “You shouldn’t be talking about any woman like that. It’s disrespectful and disgusting.”

“It was just a compliment!” Alec said.

“No. A compliment is saying you like someone’s shirt or their haircut. Objectifying them for your own sick pleasures isn’t a compliment. You wouldn’t want anyone talking about your sister like that behind their back, would you?”

Broncos jersey caught onto Pietro and looked across the cafeteria to Wanda who was herding her students into the auditorium before anything serious went down. “That’s your sister?” he asked.

“That’s not what I asked you!” Both boys shook their heads. “That’s what I thought. Now let this be the first and final time _any_ teacher has to talk to you about this. Understand?” The boys nodded. “That’s not an answer.”

“Yes sir.” They said in unison. Pietro nodded and waved his hand dismissing the boys to return to their group. They took no time walking off quickly to the other freshmen. Steve walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You handled that pretty well.”

“Just be lucky I didn’t curse the little pricks out.” he sighed and rubbed his hands across the back of his neck. “If there’s two things I hate out of students, it’s lack of respect for other people and misogyny.” Steve let out a short laugh. “You sound like my girlfriend, and she teaches at an all girls school.” Pietro didn’t reply. “Come on, we should get back to the students.” Steve said.

They walked into the auditorium that was filled with freshmen yet again. Their group had splintered off to sit with their regular groups of friends as teachers tried to get them into some type of order so they could get through Maria’s final presentation. Pietro spotted Wanda on the other side of the auditorium with Doctor Banner, talking adamantly about something. He nudged Steve with his elbow to get his attention from some student who was texting.

“I’m gonna go talk to Wanda really quickly.” he said. Steve nodded. “Alright, just be back before we have to herd these guys back out.” Pietro turned and started across the room to his sister. She paused her conversation with Bruce to acknowledge him.

“So, how’d your group go?” she asked sarcastically, clearly wanting to hear about what had gone down in the cafeteria. “Can we speak outside?” he asked.

“Make it quick,” Bruce said, “We gotta get these guys outta here soon.” Pietro nodded in understandment and walked towards the auditorium exit, Wanda trailing behind him.

Once outside the auditorium, Pietro wasted no time explaining what Alec and his Broncos fan friend had said about her. She furrowed her eyebrows together and sighed. “I appreciate that you handled those boys for talking about me, but I don’t need you to come to my defense every time someone says something.”

“What do you want me to do then? Let them say whatever they want?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Wanda said. “What I want you to do is your job without making it personal. We’re not little kids anymore, I don’t need you to be some speedy knight in shining armor.”

Pietro shifted uncomfortably, but he knew she was right. It wasn’t his place to come to her defense when she was fully capable of doing so herself. Years of being her older by twelve minutes twin and protecting her from playground bullies to nuns with questionable standards had made him out to be her protector. Now with a new job and a new start, he was beginning to realize that maybe she didn’t need him to be her sword and shield anymore.

He sighed. “Okay, you’re right.” he said. “I’ll try to be less of a Batman to your Gotham.”

“Don’t say that ever again.” Wanda laughed.

They turned and walked back into the auditorium, where Maria was wrapping up her speech. The students seemed all too eager to leave and go back to whatever they were doing before they’d gotten to the school. The staff were looking just as eager for it to be over too so they could make it to the printer before the end of the day. After today, it was one more work day and one more weekend before things really kicked into high gear.

“I hope you all come here bright and early on Monday morning ready to start the next step in your life and one step closer towards your future.” Maria waited for the half hearted applause from the freshmen to finish before continuing. “If you all will just sit tight while teachers dismiss you by section, then you’ll be out of here in no time. See you guys Monday!” she walked off the stage, signaling the teachers and staff to get to work on getting the students out and onto whatever transportation to get back home. Pietro went back to Steve while Wanda went back to Bruce and started herding the freshman out of the auditorium as orderly as possible. After about fifteen minutes, the students were out and loaded onto buses, cars and Uber’s to get back home.

“Maria put you and me down for clean up duty.” Steve said as they walked back in from the bus lot once the last bus was gone.

“How hard could that be?” Pietro asked. “They were only here for like three hours.”

“You’d be surprised at the amount of stuff we find under those seats every year.”

Pietro was one part grossed out and one part impressed by the mess the freshmen had managed to amass during the short time they’d been there (“Who the hell bites into the middle of a cheese stick?” Pietro had asked when he found the snack wedged between two seats). It didn’t take long to bag up any trash and take lost items to the front office for the impressively decorated lost and found box. Soon after, Pietro was back in Wanda’s room that was in a much worse condition than the auditorium had been.

“How is it that you’ve managed to make a bigger mess than the kids?” he asked. She tossed a paint brush at him and it smacked him right in the forehead. “If only your organization skills were as good as your aim.” he laughed, rubbing the spot where the paint brush hit him. Wanda groaned loudly. “I’m trying to organize and you’re not being much help.” she said.

“Looked pretty organized when I was in here this morning.” “Are you kidding me?” she scoffed. “Whoever was in here last just threw everything together with no rhyme or reason! They had the Copic pencils and the Crayolas in the same box! Who does that?”

“Someone who wanted to leave for the day.” he muttered. Wanda rolled her eyes and turned away from him to continue uncluttering the cheap art supplies from the expensive.

After a couple of minutes, there was a knock at the door. Both twins turned around to see Bruce standing in the doorway. “Come on in.” Wanda greeted. The doctor obliged and stood next to the seat Pietro was sitting in. “I was just stopping by to say you did good today.” Pietro smiled. “Thanks doc.”

“I meant your sister…” Bruce corrected.

“Oh, right. Of course you meant her….” Pietro replied. The three stood in an awkward silence.

“So….” Wanda started. “Would you say this orientation was better than most or no?”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “It was pretty standard. Although I must say we haven’t had a teacher yell at students in about two years.” he said, clearly referring to Pietro’s confrontation with Alec and Broncos’ jersey. “Other than that, it was nothing special.”

“Well that’s good to hear.” Wanda smiled. “Okay then, I’ll be across the hall if you need anything.” Bruce said. He turned and walked back across the hall.

“At least you’ve got a friendly face right within reach if you need anything.” Pietro said.

“Whose across the hall from you?” Wanda asked. “That Coulson guy. I think he doesn’t like me after what went down last night.” Wanda let out a short laugh. “You don’t say? It’s just so terrible that he doesn’t like you after such a cruel prank.”

“It was revenge, not a prank.”

“Whatever Pietro.”

He sighed and rubbed his hands across his face. “I’ll give the kid an apology doughnut or something. I’ll even splurge and go to Krispie Kreme instead of Dunkin!”

“Nothing says sorry for tossing you into a pool like a doughnut. If you’re gonna apologize with food then at least bake him a cake, put some effort into it.” They went back to silence after that, Wanda sorting through her art supplies and Pietro scrolling through messages on his phone (although the school’s shitty reception, he wasn’t scrolling for long).

Pietro started to ponder over how he was going to get doughnuts to Peter and Barton (he decided to kill two birds with one stone and apologize to both guys) without them feeling like he was onto something with Tony again. Although after this morning, he doubted that anyone thought he was on the math teacher’s good side anymore.

“I’ve got it!” he shouted suddenly, causing Wanda to drop the box of clay she was carrying in surprise. “What the fuck was that for?” she shouted. “Sorry, but I’ve got an idea.” he said.

Wanda groaned and massaged her temples. “Oh my god.” she muttered. “It’s nothing stupid, I promise. But I figured out how I’ll make it up to Peter and Clint.”

“Oh my god.” she said again. He quickly told her his plan, her face changing in expression from annoyance to concern and back to annoyance. He put his hands on his hips proudly when he was done explaining, waiting for her to respond.

“You’re an idiot, but whatever you think will get them back on your good side.” she sighed.

“That’s the plan! I’m hoping this beats out whatever crazy shit happens here for a while.”

“After last night, I’m highly doubting that.”

The day eventually came to a close and as Pietro was driving home with Wanda, he couldn’t help but wonder how he was going to pull of this master plan of his and just how everyone would react to it.


	4. The Final Countdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the last days before school officially starts again and let's just say that no one is having a good day.

There were a lot of things that could drive teachers crazy. While the insane amount of coffee consumed on a weekly basis was one of them, it wasn't the number one reason. For Tony, it was printer limits. No matter how hard he tried, he would always be close to the end of his printer usage limit by the last work day before students flooded the building again. It mostly was due to the fact that he would try to print off all of his syllabuses, course requirements, backup copies for the students who always managed to loose papers and assignment sheets for his AP kids (or future MIT’s as he liked to call them, but he never called them that in front of anyone but Bruce) in one go so that he wouldn't have to visit the printer until his limit reset.

Each teacher would have a set number of prints they could get out of the school's printer every four weeks, usually about three hundred fifty depending on the school's budget, and it would reset at the end of each quarter. Due to the fact that Tony taught all of the advanced math classes at Xavier's, although AP Stats was his main course, each class had at least twenty kids, and he had about ten different sheets to print, he would always hit the two hundred seventy-five mark before he could make copies of his Calculus class' assignment sheets.

When the printer screen pad beeped and flashed a message notifying him that he was more than halfway through his limit, he was tempted to ask Bruce if he could have about one hundred of his prints for the remaining papers he had.

“Printer trouble again?” Pepper asked at the other end of the printer room. Tony huffed and stopped the printer before he surpassed two hundred eighty. Catching the librarian there during the day was common seeing as the printer room was located in the room behind the circulations desk.

“Printers hate me as much as the world hates Barton.” he sighed. “You don't think Fury or the district would mind if you slipped me a few more uses do you?”

Pepper tossed a wadded up piece of paper at him and rolled her eyes. “Or you could just roll back the dial and make it seem like I've only printed one hundred copies.” he said.

“Jeez, how many copies have you gone through already?” she asked.

“Two eighty.”

Pepper rolled her lips together, clearly trying to hold back a laugh. Tony knew she always found the way her blazed through copies the way a sick kid ran through Kleenexes hilarious, especially since she always managed to keep her copies down to about fifty per quarter (It wasn't fair. She was the librarian, what the heck would she be printing off anyway?).

“I thought you bought some huge printer for your house.” she said.

“That is for personal use only.” Tony said, “My home office is already cluttered enough and I don't need school work flooding it.”

“Tony, I've been in your office more times than I'd like to admit and it's not that bad.”

It wasn't much of a secret that Pepper and Tony would hang out together whenever she could manage to pull him away from Bruce and whatever gadget he was tinkering with. Neither of them had the chance to get together much during the day due to the distance between their work spaces and Tony's schedule that was always filled with tutoring for his future MIT's or fixing one of the many broken computers in the school. When they did find time to be together, it was usually quiet and just the two of them (which was a complete juxtaposition of Tony's personality). Overall, they mostly kept their relationship to themselves to keep things sturdy and professional at work.

“Just use your home printer and save yourself the hassle.” Pepper suggested.

“Yeah, but then I’d have to use my own paper and ink and that printer is for special prints only.” he defended.

Pepper rolled her eyes “You sound like a real one percenter now.”

“That’s the plan.” Pepper threw another piece of paper at him, this one hitting him right in the eye. “Aim’s gettin’ better.” he joked.

“Yeah, that tend to happen when you join a summer softball team. You should join a sports team, would help with your teamwork skills.” Pepper scoffed.

Tony snorted a laugh. “I have excellent teamwork skills. Dunking Parker into the pool was an example of my very good teamwork skills with Speedy Bastard.”

“I thought his nickname was Quicksilver.”

“Clint’s got Speedy Bastard set in stone already so that’s what I’m calling him.”

“Well, whatever you’re calling him, that doesn’t count. Pranking coworkers doesn’t count as teamwork.”

He walked over to the other end of the printer room and wrapped his arms around her. “You and I have had some pretty good teamwork practice. Think Logan will let us play for him this season?”

“Logan would skin you alive if he heard you talk about his precious baseball team like that.” Pepper laughed.

“I think he’d skin me alive just for still covering Barton’s ass.”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna keep our ‘teamwork practice’ to a minimum if you don’t just suck it up and use your own printer.” she pulled from his embrace and got back to whatever work librarians needed to do before the school year started.

“Eh, I’d much rather help you out. I’ll just stop by Staples on the way home and get them to print this stuff for me.” he said.

“So you’d rather forego both of your free printing options and spend money to print your classwork?” Pepper asked sternly.

“Hey, some part time job college kid is gonna be grateful for me giving them some work to do. They do get paid for commission right?”

“You’re such a menace. But since you wanna help, here,” she slid one of those plastic milk crates filled with books towards him. “Go shelf these and while you’re at it, catalog everything else while you’re out there.” she placed a clipboard with a long list of books and authors copied onto several pages. He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a finger to silence him.

He sighed and began to aimlessly flip through the pages of catalog to see what had been checked off and what needed to be located. “And what’re you gonna do to help improve my teamwork skills?” he asked.

“I’m going to get whatever this buy-one-get-one coupon from Chick-fil-A has listed. I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“You wouldn’t mind getting me a- wait, what?” he looked up from the clipboard just in time to see Pepper grabbing her purse and starting toward the door. “You’re leaving me here? To do work on my own? What about the teamwork?”

“Yes. You work on your own all the time and this is apart of the teamwork exercise.” Pepper said.

“I thought Sam was the one who did all that team building crap with the students.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Just do what I asked you and we’ll talk when I get back. You want anything while I’m gone?”

“World peace and respect from my coworkers.”

“Nuggets and lemonade it is.” she walked out the printer room, leaving Tony alone and surrounded by crates of books and a beeping printer demanding a new ink cartridge. He let out a frustrated groan. “Is this how Barton feels 24/7?”  he said to himself. “Cause if so then I need to get the guy an apology card.”

* * *

If she’d said it once, she’d said it a thousand times, Jane Foster hated back to school shopping.  The hassle of dragging two hyperactive girls through crowds of equally hyperactive children to look for new shoes, backpacks and first day of school outfits was enough to drive any parent mad. She’d been able to avoid the crowds for the past few years since the girls had only been in preschool, but this year it was unavoidable. As of Monday, Kristin and Ingrid would be starting kindergarten and made sure that neither Jane nor her husband, Thor, forget it.

Jane and the twins were in Target looking at the largest collection of Frozen book bags she’d ever seen in her life. The girls were euphoric and immediately started grabbing the most decorative, and most expensive, bookbags their eyes landed on.

“Girls, those are out of our price range.” Jane warned as they showed off their glittery bags to her.

“But it’s Princess Elsa!” Kristin whined.

“She’s not a princess dummy, she’s a queen.” Ingrid retorted.

“Don’t call your sister dumb Ingrid.” Jane warned. “Both of you have to get different bags or else you can both use my old messenger bags.”

The twins poked out their lips and whined. “But mommy.” they said in unison. “That’s final. Why don’t you get that one with the purple zebra stripes?” Jane said, trying to avert the girls’ attention to the less expensive options. Ingrid was persuaded in an instant, seeing as purple was her favorite color. Kristin sighed and reluctantly put the Queen Elsa bookbag back on the shelf and followed her sister over to the less flashy, but more reasonably priced, animal print options.

After a few minutes of indecisiveness over which color would look best with each girl’s first day of school outfits, both girls had picked out their bags; Kristin had a white backpack with bees printed on it and Ingrid the purple zebra stripped one that Jane had pointed out to her.

They loaded up on composition notebooks, pencils, crayons, glue sticks and the remaining supplies on the list provided by their school and made their way to the checkout line that was painfully long. The girls quickly grew bored while waiting and began to tinker with the various small toys and magazines that lined the checkout areas. Jane had to pull a Cosmo magazine from them after Kristin had asked why the beardy man was kissing the pretty lady on her private parts.

At long last, they made it back to the car, toting bag after bag of school supplies with them. “Alright girls, next stop is Trader Joe’s and then home.” Jane said as she buckled the girls into the backseat.

“Can we get a pizza for dinner?” Ingrid asked.

“Sure, why not.” Jane replied as she got into the front seat and began to pull out of the parking lot.

The girls chattered excitedly about starting school on Monday. Their upcoming kindergarten year was the topic of almost all of their conversations over the past weeks. Even though they’d only be staying at the school from seven to noon and would spend the rest of the day with their uncle Loki, they deemed it more exciting than hanging out at their old preschool everyday, or baby school as they now called it.

Jane felt her phone buzz in her pocket, knowing it was a text from Thor, she waited until the next red light to check it. “No texting while driving!” Kristin called from the backseat as Jane pulled out her phone at the light.

“I know, I know. I’m gonna quick.” Jane said. She opened the text from her husband.

_Thor: How is the back to school shopping going?_

Jane typed out a quick reply before the light changed green. _Fine. We’re going to Trader Joe’s now._ She dropped her phone into the cup holder and watched it out of the corner of her eye as the screen lit up indicating her husband’s reply. This time she waited until they were pulled into the Trader Joe’s parking lot before checking her messages. The girls quickly undid their seat belts and waited impatiently as Jane read the message.

_Thor: Don’t let the girls know that there’s a sale on cookie butter today._

Jane snorted a laugh. _I’ll try my hardest. These two can sniff it out like bees to honey though._

_Thor: This is true. I apologize again for not being able to accompany you today. I’ll make it by making dinner and the girl’s lunches for the entire first week._

She wasn’t upset that he hadn’t come with her, he was at work busy preparing for his first day of school too and hadn’t been able to leave at noon like he’d initially promised (something about that silver haired kid from Tony’s party on Wednesday being shown the ropes around the gym). She was, however, grateful that her husband was willing to handle dinner and lunch for the first week seeing as she would be busy preparing for the fall semester to start at her job. Even though she didn’t start until next week, she still had dozens of lesson plans to finalize and having Thor offer to do most of the work night before Kristin and Ingrid’s first day of school was much appreciated.

_Jane: Thanks babe. I’ll see you when you get home._

She pocketed her phone and got out of the car, the girls following closely behind her. The twins bickered over whose turn it was to push the buggy around the store, a privilege they thought was the highest of them all.

“But you got to push it around in Target! It’s my turn now!” Ingrid fussed.

“But I’m older, so I get to do it!” Kristin defended.

“We’re twins!”

“Since neither one of you can stop fighting, I’m going to push the buggy.” Jane cut in, stopping their argument short.  “But mommy” they whined.

“No. That’s the end of it.” Jane said curtly. She grabbed the nearest cart and wheeled it off into the store.

Thankfully Trader Joe’s was one of the stores that most people wouldn’t think to go to stock up on food for kid’s lunches, sure there were a few families here and there, but it was far less crowded than Target and Walmart had been.

Jane wheeled the cart around the store with the twins pouting at her side over not being able to push the cart themselves. She grabbed whatever snacks the girls had been begging for over the past few days into the cart along with several boxes of oatmeal to last the first few weeks (although they’d probably be gone by the end of this week) and two frozen pizzas for dinner.

At long last, they were back in the car and on the way home. Somehow the girls had managed to wear themselves out from all the excitement that comes with shopping for your very first (and most important as Ingrid had said many times) day of school.

It was clear that Thor had beaten Jane and the twins home since his truck was parked in the driveway when Jane was pulling up. She sighed in relief knowing that she wouldn’t have to attempt to tote all of the groceries and school supplies by herself while trying to rally the girls’ excitement.  She turned around to face the back seat and patted both of her daughter’s gently on the knee to wake them.

“Come on girls, we’re home.” she said.

“Is daddy home yet?” Ingrid asked sleepily.

“Yeah, and I’m betting he’ll want ask you guys about your day.”

That seemed to wake both of them up fully and they began to undo their seatbelts. They rushed out of the car before Jane could gather her purse and other belongings and took off to the front door. Jane quickly caught up to them to unlock the door and when she did, the twins burst into the house calling for their father.

“Are those my two favorite girls I hear?” Thor called as he appeared from the kitchen. The girls tackled him with a hug around each leg and began to babble excitedly about shopping for their school supplies.

“We were going to get Princess Elsa backpacks but mommy said no.” Kristin said.

“For the last time Kristie, she’s a queen not a princess.” Ingrid corrected rudely.

“That’s no way to talk to your sister Ingrid.” Thor said. “She made a simple mistake, there was no need to be rude.”

“Okay. Sorry Kristie.” Ingrid said.

Thor smiled. “That wasn’t too hard was it? Why don’t you two go and play for a bit while your mother and I prepare dinner.”

“Okay.” the girls said in unison before taking off up the stairs towards their bedroom.

Once the girls were out of sight, Jane walked over to her husband and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “How was your day with the new guy?” she asked after she pulled back.

“He’s already made a reputation that surpasses any of my coworkers, but he’s not a bad person.” Thor said. “He’s a hard worker though, and loves his job so I imagine that the students will like him.”

“Well let’s just hope that he doesn’t get the bright idea to toss anyone else into a pool.” Jane smirked. She turned and lead Thor back out to the car to get the groceries and supplies. It was a one way trip thanks to Thor helping and not long afterwards, Jane was packing supplies into the girls’ backpacks as Thor prepared lunches and dinner for the evening.

“It’s still hard for me to believe that our daughters will be starting school tomorrow.” Thor said as he was packing another peanut butter and banana sandwich. “Seems like only yesterday you were calling me at work to say you were pregnant.”

A small smile spread across Jane’s lips at the memory. The nine months that she’d been pregnant with the twins had been hell on wheels, but that one bitterly cold night in November had made it all worth it when she’d held Ingrid and Kristin for the first time.

“I still remember what your mother said to me when your parents came to see them for the first time,” she said. “Tomorrow you and Thor will be packing lunches for the first day of school and the week after that you’ll be taking pictures of them in cap and gowns.” she let out a short laugh, looking down at all of the school supplies that was nothing compared to what was on the syllabus for her astrophysics students. “I just hope we have time to watch how they grow and learn and not just worry about trying to make a good life for them at the same time.”

While she and Thor were both exceptional teachers, neither of them made amazing wages. Combined, it was enough for them to get by and support their family but they both wanted more than trying to make it to the end of each month unscathed.

“I’d say we’ve been doing fairly well for the last few years.” Thor said, trying to reassure her. “and we’re both still young, we can make this work out.”

Jane let out a sigh. She knew he was right, but every once in a while Jane would worry that the girls would have to grow up the way her family did, living paycheck to paycheck and questioning if college is going to be a viable option in their future.

“I know, but I just don’t want things to not work out and the girls have to grow up with limited experiences because our jobs have crappy wages.” she said.

Thor walked over from the kitchen and sat down next to her at the dining room table. “I know you worry about our financial status, but it will work out.” he started. “You have nothing to worry about. Things have been in our favor for a while and I’m doubting they’ll change just because the girls are going to school.” he pulled her to him and kissed her on the forehead.

Jane sighed in relief. If there was one thing she could always count on from her husband, it was for him to calm her down whenever she was getting into her ‘everything is terrible’ tunnel vision.

“What would I do without you?” she said.

“Probably be working with Neil Degrasse Tyson.” Thor joked. Jane swatted him on the arm before giving him a quick kiss on the lips.

“Ew!”

The two pulled apart to see Ingrid and Kristin standing at the edge of the dining room. “You two were kissing!” Kristin scrunched up her nose. A smile spread across Thor’s face. “You never complain when I kiss you.” he said.

“That’s different,” Ingrid said, “That’s on the cheek and forehead and stuff. Not gross grown up kisses on the mouth.”

“Well that’s why your father and I kiss on the mouth, cause we’re grown ups.” Jane teased. She pulled Thor in for another kiss and smiled as she heard the twins let out another half delighted, half disgusted squeal.

* * *

Tony made repeated mental notes to never ever _ever_ again tease Pepper about how easy her job was. Sure she didn’t have to deal with grading endless mountains of work, students constantly making up bullshit excuses as to why they didn’t study for the test that was always announced two weeks in advance or just the entire math department in general (all four of the them, Tony included). But after about ten minutes, Tony understood how Pepper could seem so frustrated at the end of some days; the job was so fucking tedious. Just throw in some students mucking up her damn near perfect organization system, teachers begging for lab time and a faulty printer and you have one tense librarian.

After Pepper had left, he had considered calling up Bruce to help him but decided against it since Bruce was still giving him the cold shoulder for the cafeteria, party and office incidents. At first he found the task brain numbingly boring, all there was to it was grabbing a book, checking the catalog for its Dewey decimal number (why Pepper still used that system or paper was still a mystery to him) and putting it in its proper place. It was all pretty easy until he started to get into the books that had gone MIA.

Some had just been put in the wrong place or in another bin, but most of the books were missing altogether. It was after he had gone looking for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for about the third time that Tony was starting to lose it.

“If I have to re-shelf this stupid fucking Twilight book again, I’m burning it.” he muttered to himself as he dropped the book back into the bin. “And of course, I have three other bins to sort through!” he shouted, his voice echoing across the empty library.

“You alright over there Mr. Stark?”

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden disturbance. He stood up and looked over the shelves to see Stan hobbling his way towards him.

“Yeah, I’m fine. What’re you doing here? I thought you usually left earlier.”

“I was just on my way out, but I wanted to stop and talk to Ms. Potts for a moment.” the janitor replied. “Do you know where she is?”

“She went to go get some lunch about…” Tony looked across the library to the clock on the wall above the circulations desk. “Twenty minutes?!” he shouted. “Pepper stood me up!”

“Don’t think this is a date son.” Stan said.

“I know, but, how long does it take to go to Chick-fil-A? It’s like six miles up the road!”

The janitor let out a shaky laugh. “Maybe she left you here to do her job.” he said, “Serves you right for teasing her about her job all the time.”

Tony was taken aback by the snark reply. He’d been working at Xavier’s for almost ten years and had never such a smart reply from Stan (this was also the first time Tony had actually heard Stan speak more than five words to him).

He knew that Stan was right though, but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Tony turned up his nose to the janitor. “Yeah, well,”

“Whatever you’re gonna say, I’ve probably heard it.” Stan cut in. He turned and started towards the exit. “You guys are gonna miss me when I’m gone!” he called behind him.

Tony wasn’t sure if Stan was talking about retirement or death, but decided it would be better not to dwell on the subject for long.

* * *

 

_Tony: please big guy. i’m about to go postal on a bunch of books._

Bruce sighed and locked his phone, he didn’t have time for Tony’s whiny bullshit right now. His phone continued to buzz in his pocket as he sat through the meeting with the rest of the teachers in the science department, Peter and Gwen. It less of a meeting and more of sitting at the lab table in Bruce’s classroom around varying snacks, usually provided by Darcy who was always on the prowl for hints to his bookshelf, and proofreading each other’s standards for the year to make sure everything was in the clear.

This almost always took a while since both Peter and Gwen were fairly new teachers and were still trying to perfect their lesson plans for the year. So while the two of them would never really have to go through Bruce’s lesson plans (he’d been on this job thirteen years, he had lesson plans down to a tee), it left Bruce doing extensive revisions to Peter’s. He didn’t mean to knock the kid, he really was a good teacher, but he usually tended to jump into situations with no backup plan, or any plan.

“So Doctor Banner,” Peter spoke up trying to break up the awkward silence, “you did anything fun over the summer?”

Bruce had a rule that after two days back at work, everyone should be past the ‘what did you do this summer?’ small talk. Regardless, he answered Peter anyway.

“Went on some road trips with a few old colleagues. Nothing too exciting.” he replied without looking up.

He could hear Peter munching on the pretzels that Darcy had provided for them. “Hm, Darcy told me that you went to Johannesburg. How did that go?”

Bruce tried to not tense up at the question. It was clear from Peter’s tone that Darcy had probably told him the extent of her knowledge about his trip and he was dying to know more about it.  Of all the things he had actively avoided spreading around the school, his trip to South Africa was something he’d fought tooth and nail to keep secret.

Gwen sighed in clear frustration. “Did you ask Darcy about that?”

“Well it was less of me asking and her telling me while she was bringing snacks to my class.” Peter confessed.

“Christ Peter. You two and Wade are like this school’s own Perez Hilton.” Gwen said.

“I think we’re more TMZ. None of us are racist assholes with a bad dye job.” Bruce spoke up, trying to shift the subject.

Gwen laughed. “Sounds like you’ve been hanging out around Tony for a bit too long Doctor Banner.” Gwen said.

“You don’t have to call me Doctor Banner. School year hasn’t started yet.” Bruce said.

Most of the younger teachers (which was the shockingly large group of Gwen, Peter and Miles) still had a habit of calling their co workers by their proper names instead of first names outside of classroom settings.

“Sorry, force of habit.” Gwen said. “Some grad school habits die hard.”

“Just like your rubber band balls.” Peter muttered. Gwen jabbed him in the stomach with her elbow.

Bruce raised an eyebrow at the comment. He knew Peter and Gwen were an oddball couple and could usually care less about whatever shenanigans they got into, but one doesn’t just say ‘just like your rubber band balls’ and not be able to get by without questioning.

Apparently the pair picked up on his speculation and answered the question that he never asked. “I make rubber band balls whenever I’m bored.” Gwen confessed. “I’ve got a desk drawer filled with them in  my room.”

“You should see her desk drawers at her apartment,” Peter piped in. “It’s like a ball pin on steroids.”

“Oh it is not that bad.”

“You had to clear out the entire bottom drawer of your desk to make more space for your balls.”

“Maybe we should stay on task.” Bruce spoke up. “It’s already half past two and I was trying to get out of here before three.”

Gwen and Peter nodded and looked back down at their respective lesson plans. Although Bruce was doing a bulk of the work, it was nice to get back into it seeing as he hadn’t eaten since that morning and was eager to get home and eat the rest of the mac and cheese he made last night.

Just when he was about to give Peter’s corrected papers back, his phone started ringing. ACDC’s _Thunderstruck_ sounded across the room, notifying Bruce that Tony was calling him. “I’ll be back in a minute.” he excused himself and got up to leave the classroom.

“Please tell me you’re not calling me from inside the school.” Bruce started when he answered. “At least be in the parking lot.”

“Nope, still going at it alone in the library.” Tony said on the other end. Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not coming to help you. I was just about to wrap things up with Gwen and Peter and go home.”

“I’ll give you my Chick-fil-A nuggets if you run like the wind.”

“I don’t like Chick-fil-A.”

“What fast food places do you actually like?” Tony asked. “Do you just eat canned nuts and pudding cups on road trips?”

“I’m hanging up now.” Bruce said flatly.

“Don’t leave me hanging. No pun intended.”

“Tony…”

“You could at least stop by before you go. Stan just came in and he said we’re gonna miss him when he’s gone.” Tony said.

“Well I can imagine that we will seeing as he’s the only janitor that works here full time.” Bruce followed. “Look, I’m trying to get out of here before three because I need to get to the grocery store and it’s tax free weekend. I’m not trying to fight a soccer mom over the last loaf of bread at Walmart.”

“I’ll give you my Costco membership card if you stop by.” Tony suggested.

“I’m hanging up for real now.” Bruce said.

“What about Sam's’ Club?”  

Bruce didn’t reply and hung up. He walked back into the classroom where Peter and Gwen had gone quiet, clearly trying to eavesdrop on his conversation. He looked down at the papers spread across the lab table (he tried to not look at that bag of Lays, his stomach was emptier than a poor man’s gas tank).

“Let’s just pack up and call it a day.” he said. “Your plans look good for the first semester but come back if you want me to check you stuff for next semester.” he said handing Peter his lesson plans.

“Thanks Doc, uh, Bruce.” Peter said.

“No problem.”

He sat and waited for the two to gather their things and offered them the remaining snacks before they left to wherever they needed to be. Bruce checked the clock once again, it was ten minutes before three o’clock.

“It’s still technically leaving before three if I run for it.” Bruce said to himself before gathering his things, checking that his bookshelf was still in order and locking up his classroom for the evening.

* * *

“I don’t wanna die! I sometimes wish I hadn’t been born at all!” Tony belted out.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He whipped around to find Pepper standing behind him, holding two Chick-fil-a bags and a cup of  lemonade.

“Singing about the many woes of being a librarian.” he sighed.

He had long given up on his attempts to resume organizing the books again and instead resolved to updating the computer systems in the library. It was all going well until one of the older computers had completely given up on life and refused to do so much as open Internet Explorer. Tony had resolved to singing a highly bastardized version ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to express his frustration.

“Well did you at least finish putting all the books back?” she asked, placing the food onto a nearby table.

“I gave up.” he whispered.

Pepper raised an eyebrow. “Say that again. Don’t think I heard that quite right.” she mocked. “That couldn’t have been the Tony Stark saying he gave up on something.”

“Yeah, the world must be going bonkers ‘cause you’ve got food in the library.” Tony pointed at the bags of food.. “The Pepper Potts who put Barnes out for an entire semester for accidentally spilling powdered doughnuts. This job never fails to surprise me.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Come and get your nuggets before I give ‘em to Pietro.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Hey, I like him. He reminds me of my younger brother when he was going through his rebel phase.”

“I thought your brother’s entire life was a rebel phase.”

“It is but I like to imagine that he has his life together now.” she pulled out a chair and sat. “You gonna come eat or continue shaming one of the greatest songs of the twentieth century?”

“I was trying my best Pepp. Can’t call me out for that.” he said, walking over to the table and taking a seat next to her.

“Well if you want to sing about how much my job stinks, sing ‘This Woman’s Work’ because this place would fall apart without my job.” Pepper said as she unwrapped her chicken sandwich.

Tony snorted a laugh. “Since when did you start listening to Maxwell?”

“Since Ororo gave me that mixed tape she made for Secret Santa ages ago.”

“I didn’t take her as an R&B type or person. More of a Alicia Keys and Probably a lot of Prince.”

“She hates Alicia Keys. Loves Prince though.”

“Learn something new everyday.” he grabbed his box of nuggets and lemonade and the couple ate in silence for a moment.

“So you remember the hierarchy system I made up with Phil,” he started after a moment’s pause.

“Oh god.” Pepper sighed through a mouthful of fries.

“Don’t worry, no food fights will follow this time around.” Tony started. “But if you had to pick a theme song for each cluster in the school, which would you pick?”

Pepper gave him a disinterested look. “I personally would say ‘What Do You Do for Money Honey?’ for the Dream Team because no one outside of work will believe them when they say teachers.”

It was clear that Pepper was trying to hide the smile threatening to break out across her face by taking a sip of Tony’s lemonade, so he continued until she opened up completely.

“Steve and his little workout trio are ‘Dare’ because you cannot convince me that at least one of them has that song on a workout playlist.”

“Isn’t that the shitty song from the original Transformers movie?” Pepper asked.

“Yeah. I’m betting that it’s Barnes or Rogers that listens to it too.” he continued. “And if it is Rogers then Miss Carter probably hates that song and cranks up the Sex Pistols whenever he plays it.”

Pepper smirked at him. “You can be so ridiculous some days.” she said.

“Well you’ve stuck with me through my ridiculous days, so for that, you can have my last nugget.” he slid the box over to her.

“Someone’s gotta do it,” she said as she popped the nugget into her mouth, “God only knows how much longer Bruce is gonna hold out.”

“If he could handle me when I was listening to LMFAO then he can handle me when I’m getting coworkers to dunk each other into my pool."

* * *

Clint should have guessed that his night was going to be a rough one. With all the crazy bullshit that had somehow managed to squeeze itself into the past couple of days, he should have known that the night before the first day of school was going to bite him in the butt.

He was lying in bed, earbuds pushed as far as they could go into his ears and some song from some band that Bruce had recommended blasting at top volume from his phone. He’d even resolved to singing along even though he didn’t know all of the words just to try to hear something other than his neighbor’s noisy sex.

         It should be a crime against humanity to be a bad neighbor. He thought bitterly. It was well past midnight and if Clint had to hear “Oh my god Nadia” or whatever dumbass safeword they’d come up with one more time, he was going to go full blown Jack Torrance.

“Something something some shit about wires.” he mumbled along to the music. “It felt right. It felt right. Some more shit about wires.”

“Fucking hell Clyde!” his neighbor shouted on the other side of the wall. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Clint pulled his pillow out from under his head and pressed it against his face hoping for silence or suffocation to come (and to be honest he was hoping for the latter). He didn’t know why he thought that was going to work because various noises and phrases that he’d never be able to hear from anyone else normally again still flooded into his ears. When the red numbers on his alarm changed to one o’clock, Clint had had enough.

He threw the pillow off his face and yanked out his earbuds. He shot up and turned to face the wall and started pounding furiously. “Do you two ever get tired of being inside each other?” he shouted. “It’s one in the morning and some of us have to go to work in the morning for fucks sake! Give it a rest!”

For the first time in several nights, it was dead quiet and Clint prayed that it would stay that way. “Fucking thank you.” he mumbled before crashing back onto his bed.

Just as he was finally drifting back to sleep, there was a knock at the door. It took all of his willpower to not scream ‘fuck off’ at the top of his lungs. Instead he groaned and dragged himself out of bed and walked groggily to the front door. He looked through the peephole and saw none other than his neighbor, Clyde as he’d heard his name screamed out for so many nights, standing on the other side.

“Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” he muttered. “What do you want?” he asked loudly.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” Clyde said.

Clint was damn near pulling his hair out. He unlocked the door and yanked it open, facing Clyde with the angriest face he could muster, and given the night he was having, it wasn’t that hard.

“You’ve got a bone to pick?” he shouted in his face. “I’ve got about a million to shove up your asshole, asshole!” Clyde opened his mouth to say something, but Clint raged on without stopping to so much as take a breath. “I have to get up in less than six hours and go to a school packed with a bunch of hormone filled teenagers who don’t want to be there and deal with their shit for eight hours! Did I mention that I’ve also gotta work with the same fucker who shoved me into a pool and try not to choke out my ‘friend’ who told that same fucker to push me into said pool? Cause I don’t think I did! On top of all that I have to make myself seem half way decent and act like my life isn’t a complete fucking mess right now so that my boss doesn’t flay me! So the last thing I wanna do right now is deal with motherfuckers like you who doesn’t know how to pump twice and call it a night!”

Clint stood there, shoulders heaving, waiting for Clyde, who was standing there jaw dropped, to say something. The younger man stammered before forcing out an apology and walking back towards his apartment without another word.

Clint stepped back inside his apartment and slammed the door shut. Instead of making the trip back to his bedroom, he crashed right there on the sofa, praying that his alarm was loud enough to be heard from the living room before knocking out again within minutes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so so sorry about this being late but my internet was down for about a week and i'm just now getting back into it. chapter five is probably gonna be late too seeing as i start college next week, but i will try my hardest to stick to my two week update schedule. i have one shots that i'll post to try and keep things up and running while these chapters are in the work. enjoy and hang with me!


	5. The Youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of school has finally arrived, which means it's time to meet the second best part of Xavier's: the students. Between new freshmen, new teachers and reunited friends, the new year is kicking off to an interesting start. Will the year go on without a hitch or will there be too many changes and revelations for the show to go on?

There were a lot of things that Kate Bishop knew the answer to. She knew that you couldn't pour water into a hot glass dish after you took it out the oven, that her dog Lucky wasn't the most reliable guard dog, she even knew what brands of coffee each of her teachers liked most (which had given her quite the advantage in Mr.Rogers’ class last year). But the one thing she could never find an answer to was which was worse; first days, or last days.

Kate had spent most of the night before tossing and turning, trying to come to a conclusion. The next morning would mark her first day as a high school senior, but also her last first day of high school. On one hand, after today, she would never ever again have to experience the seeing the horribly colored school mascot first thing in the morning after nearly forgetting about it over the summer. But on the other hand, it was also the last year that Xavier’s Memorial would be blessed by her presence. It was almost depressing to think about how dull Spirit Week was going to be without her there to liven up the usually boring and re-used themes. All of these thoughts crowded her brain as she was driving to school to start her last first day at the school that had more stories than CNN during a presidential election.

“Focus on the road Katie.” she mumbled to herself. “Not gonna make it to your last first day if you don’t,you mother fucker!” she shifted her attention to the black Audi that had just cut her off just as she was about to turn onto the street that lead to Xavier’s.

She honked her horn at the car. “I had the right of way asshole!” She turned behind the car that seemed to be going in the same direction that she was. It took all of her willpower to not pull up next to the car and give them the finger for their poor driving. Instead, she cranked up her radio and began singing along to whatever song was playing to push the urge out of her system.

“Ooh this would be the shit I start my day off with.” she huffed. “I hope you step on Legos everytime you walk barefoot!”

The car stayed in front of her the rest of the drive to school. When Xavier’s finally came into view, the car turned into the lane that lead around to the back of the school. Kate’s heart dropped into her stomach when she realized the car’s destination, the teacher parking lot.

“Oh fuck me.” she grumbled. “Day one of senior year is going great and I haven’t even made it inside building yet.” She turned into the left lane that lead to the student parking lot. It was slowly filling up as most of the senior class and a few underclassmen arrived.

Kate was able to find her usual parking spot, which was thankfully still free. She checked the time on her phone once she was parked, there were still another ten minutes before class actually started. She wasn’t concerned with being late, she knew where all of her classes were and most teachers were lenient about tardies on the first day. That in mind, Kate decided it was high time to pay a visit to one of her favorite teacher, Mr.Barton.

“Let’s see how bird brain’s been doing without me.” she smirked to herself as she undid her seatbelt.

She gathered her practically empty backpack that would surely be filled with textbooks by the end of tomorrow and stepped out of her car. “Stepping into the parking lot for the last first time.” Kate said to herself.

She made her way across the parking lot, waving to classmates as she went by. When she reached the first row of parking spaces, she stopped, noticing a black Ford Taurus, the car belonging to her best friend, America Chavez. She smiled to herself and walked over to the car. America was still inside, consumed in some conversation on her phone. Kate knocked on the window, causing America to jump a bit. She looked over at Kate and mouthed ‘gimme a minute’. Kate nodded and leaned against the back door of the car, waiting for her friend to step out.

Exactly a minute later, the driver’s side door opened and America stepped out. “My mom was getting all sentimental again.” she said. “She keeps crying and I just want her to chill out. Anyway, how’s your morning going so far?”

“It was going fine until I started my drive here.” Kate started walking towards the side entrance of the school. “Uh oh, what happened this time? Did your muffler fall out again?” America asked jokingly referring to the time last year when the muffler fell from Kate’s car when they were carpooling together.

Kate nudged her with her elbow. “No, nothing that bad. Unless you consider being cut off by someone and then getting road rage only to realize that it was a teacher who cut you off worse.”

America snorted a laugh. “Was it Mr.Stark? Ten bucks says it was him.” Kate rolled her eyes. “Even if it was him, I’ve only got a five.”

“Alright then, five bucks says it was Mr.Stark.”

“Ugh whatever. I say it was Ms. Lewis, if it was, you owe me an empanada.”

“Fair enough.” America held out her hand and Kate shook it, sealing their bet. “Anyway, where were you headed to? Class doesn’t start for another then minutes.”

“I was gonna go talk to Mr.Barton. Wanna come with me?”

“It’s either that or hang out in the cafeteria for ten minutes.”

They entered through the cafeteria entrance and walked past the throngs of freshmen, sophomores and a few unfortunate upperclassmen who couldn’t drive to the hallway that broke away from the dining area. The hallway was deadly quiet compared to the cafeteria, but would soon be bustling with life as soon as the hour hand struck eight. They walked up the stairs to the second floor and, waving at Stan as they went.

“I thought he was supposed to be laid off last year.” Kate said after he passed. America shrugged her shoulders. “We all got bills to pay. Or maybe he just like his job.”

“Well god bless him for putting up with crazy students and teachers.”

They exited onto the second floor and passed classroom after classroom until they reached Mr. Barton’s room. The door was closed, but there was a tiny sliver of light escaping from underneath the door. Kate knocked and waited for the door to open. After a moment’s pause, there still wasn’t an answer so she knocked again, harder this time.

On the other side of the door, she could hear the tell tale sound of something toppling onto the floor and someone letting out a short startled grunt. Kate looked from the door to America, who was raising an eyebrow.

“Mr.Barton, you alright in there?” Kate asked. The door opened, revealing Mr.Barton looking like he needed about six shots of Five Hour Energy. “Well don’t you look...energized.” she said.

“I didn’t sleep well last night.” he said. “Let’s just say there are rats in my walls.”

“That’s clearly an innuendo for something, but whatever.” she walked past Mr. Barton into the classroom, America following behind her. She took a seat in the desk that she had been assigned last year when she took his class for Honors U.S. History.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, leaning against his desk. “I’m America Chavez. I’ve never had your class, but Kate tells me that it was a riot in here during second period.” America said.

Mr.Barton chuckled. “My desk caught on fire two years ago during second period, so calling it a ‘riot’ is an understatement.”

A smile spread across America’s face. “That was your class that had ‘Apple Flavored Soda’? I thought that was Mr.Wilson and Ms.Lewis screwing around in the drama classroom.”

“Nope, that was my room.”

America turned to look at Kate, “You weren’t lying, this guy’s got terrible luck.”

“Like a black cat walking under a ladder on Friday the thirteenth.” Kate said.

Mr.Barton sighed. “You two sound like you’ve been hanging out with Tony.”

Kate shuddered. She didn’t know why, but hearing teachers call each other by their first names during school hours always made her uncomfortable. It was like seeing a completely peeled watermelon, just something that no one ever likes to think about.

“You mean Mr.Stark?” America asked, picking up on Kate’s reaction.

“Yeah, him. Sorry, I got used to calling everyone by their first names during the summer.” Mr. Barton said.

“You actually hung out with your coworkers during the summer?” Kate scoffed. “You guys work together for nine months. Did you miss them that much?”

“When you’ve been working here for as long as I have, your only friends start to become your coworkers. Besides, Nat, dang it, Ms.Romanoff and I have been hanging out for years. It’s not that different than if you were to hang out with your friends over the summer.”

“Not to be rude or anything, but I don’t think I could be friends with teachers, like, ever.” Kate said.

“Ms.Romanoff and I are kinda friends. She friended me on Facebook.” America said.

“Yeah, but that was because you were spending the night at my house and you lost a bet. That doesn’t count.”

“It totally counts.” she muttered.

“Moving past teacher-friend relationships,” Mr.Barton spoke up, “what’d you two do over the summer?”

“Work.” they said in unison.

While Kate and America had made plenty of time between shifts to hang out, they had, overall, spent a majority of their summer working. Kate at the local movie theater and America at Target. When they did manage to hang out, they mostly complained about the how much their jobs sucked.

“If I have to smell butter popcorn ever again, I’m going to go into cardiac arrest.” Kate recalled herself saying on the Fourth of July weekend when they went to a friend’s barbecue together.

“You think that’s bad, at least you don’t have to deal with assholes who think I’ve got something to do with the fact that something isn’t in their size.” America had replied. “I don’t make the shirts, I just stock them.”

Both of them were elated when the summer finally came to a close and they got their final paychecks two weeks ago. Granted, after working all summer and then going back to doing nothing for two weeks was quite a transition, but they’d decided to put those weeks to good use and practically every waking moment together. Whether it was in person or Skype calls, they made sure to make the best of their last two weeks of summer before plunging into their final year of high school together.

“Hey, at least you’ll have some experience in before you go to college next year.” Mr.Barton said. “Anyway, what’s your schedule look like this year Kate?”

“I’ve got Dr.Banner first period and then that dumb SAT Practice class.” she said. “Who the heck even is Coach Maximoff? Is he new?”

“Yeah. Him and his sister are new this year.” he replied.

“Wait, so the new art teacher isn’t his wife?” America asked.

“Funny how none of the teachers thought that when they came here, but all of the students do.” Mr.Barton said. “But no, they’re twins. Go ahead and spread the news to the rest of your friends cause Wanda, fuck me,”

“Language!” Kate and America called in unison, mocking their English teacher, Mr.Rogers.

“You two are just as bad as Ms.Hill.” he said. “Aye, you didn’t slip up that time, good work.” Kate said jokingly.

“Whatever. You two should start heading to class before the freshmen lose their minds in the halls.”

“I know my way around the school well enough to avoid them.” Kate said.

“True, but I was going to go to Mr.Stark’s room and since neither of you are in my class, you technically can’t be in here when I’m not in here.”

Kate let out a loud groan. “Okay fine. But I’m stopping by during my free period to make more sanitizer puns.”

“Yeah, well I’ve got a meeting with all the other teachers who don’t have a class that period, so good luck with that.” he scoffed. “But seriously, y’all gotta go so I can get more coffee before Steve gets down there.”

“You mean Mr.Rogers.” America corrected. “You know who I mean.” Mr.Barton replied ****

Kate picked up her backpack and lead America to the door. “Well, it was nice talking to you. Don’t be surprised if I drop by during lunch.”

“I’ll be teaching freshmen during the upperclassmen lunch period.”

“Ugh, whatever. See you when I see you then.”

“Bye Kate. Nice meeting you America.” Mr.Barton waved them goodbye as the girls left the classroom and started towards the staircase to go to the first floor where they both had first period classes.

“Really wishing I had gotten him for my US history teacher.” America said as they started up the stairs. “Mr.Summers’ class was so boring.”

“I know, you never stopped complaining about him.” Kate said.

“You try sitting through his class for ninety minutes listening to him drone on and try not to pass out. It should be an Olympic sport to stay awake in his class.”

“Well at least you don’t have to take a class for a history credit this year. I’ve gotta suffer through some economics class. Why the hell is that even counted as a history credit? It’s taxes and capitalism, not captials and colonialism.”

“At least it’s an easy course. I hear Mr.Coulson is pretty chill and lenient on grading, especially if you’re in the class for an extra credit.” America said.

“Eh, I guess you’re right. And it’s the last class before my free period, so it shouldn’t be too much to suffer through.”

They arrived at the first floor landing just as the bell rang, releasing any students who hadn’t stowed away to classes early into the halls and staircases of the school.

“We made good timing.” Kate said. “Now I just gotta remember which end of the hall Dr.Banner’s class is on.”

“He’s across from the art room, same place he’s been for however long he’s been there.” America said. “What would I do without you to guide me?” Kate joked. “Probably get lost in your own house and not even make it to school.” America laughed.

When they reached Dr.Banner’s classroom, the door was wide open. Kate stepped inside, waving America off as she went down the hall to her AP Literature class.

“Morning Dr.Banner.” Kate greeted her teacher who was at the back of the classroom with Mr.Stark. Both men looked up and greeted her. “Good morning, um, what’s your name?”

“Kate Bishop.”

“Morning Kate. Just take a seat anywhere,” Dr.Banner said. “Seats are arranged by how well you behave around who you’re sitting with.”

Kate dropped her belongings at a desk in the middle row and took a seat, waiting for other classmates to come in. A few seconds after she’d sat down, both Dr.Banner and Mr.Stark walked past her to reach the front of the classroom.

“I’ll stop by later. Try not to drop too many hints about your shelf while I’m gone.” Mr.Stark said as he started towards the door. “Oh and, you there, Kate is it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Next time you wanna scream at someone and call them an a-hole while you’re driving, at least make sure your windows are rolled up.” Mr.Stark gave her a thumbs up and walked out of the classroom.

Kate slumped down in her desk and let out a loud groan just as a pack of students were walking through the doorway. Dr.Banner rolled his lips together, trying to conceal the smile attempting to spread across his face. “Never thought Mr.Stark would be the one to call people out on his road rage.” he said.

“Why’s that?” Kate asked.

“Last time we rode somewhere together, he cursed enough to make Samuel L. Jackson feel like an ameture.”

Kate snorted a laugh. “First time for everything I guess.” _And now I owe America my only five bucks. Good day this is turning out to be so far._

* * *

 

Cassie paced back and forth in the driveway, waiting for her father to come out of the house. _I thought it was supposed to be the impatient parent waiting on the slow kid._ She thought to herself. _Not the other way around._

It was seven forty five, fifteen minutes before her first day of high school started, and she was running terribly late. First, her alarm hadn’t gone off so she’d woken up twenty minutes later than she’d planned to. Then, it turned out that her father had been up all night working on some new engineering project in the basement, and he was about as alert and awake as a sloth in a coma. She’d been able to get herself together in no time, but her father had gone sprinting back and forth through the house as he tried to put himself together and prepare breakfast while she’d been getting herself ready for the day.

“Dad! I’m gonna be late!” she shouted towards the house. She heard a window slide open above her. She looked up to see her dad’s head leaning out of the window. He still looked just as disheveled as he had when she’d found him in the basement, but at least he’d put on a decent shirt.

“Give me like two minutes! I just have to find my belt.” he called down to her. Cassie sighed. “It’s in the laundry room. You left it in the pants you wore to church yesterday.” Her dad snapped his fingers. “You’re absolutely right. What would I do without you Cass?” he ducked back inside the window and it slammed shut. “You’d still be asleep in the basement.” she mumbled under her breath.

Cassie loved her dad to death, but it was times like these that made her wonder if she’d be better off living with her mom and step dad. While she couldn’t stand her step dad and didn’t get to do half of the stuff her dad let her do with them, at least there’d been some sort of structure at her mom’s house during the summer. Had it not been for the fact that her stepfather had gotten that job as a criminal investigator and needed to move to wherever his newest case was assigned, she’d still be living with them. But instead, here she was, standing in the middle of her dad’s driveway, waiting for him to find a belt and was about to be late for her first day of school.

She groaned and checked the time on her phone again, seven fifty, ten minutes before she was going to be late. “I can still make it if I pull a Road Runner right now.” she said.

She heard the front door creak open and then slam shut. She looked up to see her father locking the door before speed walking over to the car. “Sorry about that. I couldn’t find my keys either.” he said. “I left them on the hook by the door so you wouldn’t misplace them.” Cassie said.

“I know, I know. But I just forget things sometimes.” he opened the driver’s side door and Cassie walked around to the passenger side. He turned the key in the ignition a few times, uttering swears under his breath each time the engine would sputter. “Come on, come on, come on. Don’t fail me now.” After the fifth attempt, the engine roared to life. “Alright! Let’s get this show on the road!” he cheered. He backed out of the driveway and sped off down the road.

Thanks to her dad’s get away car driving, they arrived at school with two minutes to spare. “Told you you’d make it on time.” he said. “Now hurry up, don’t wanna get marked absent on your first day.”

Cassie grabbed her stuff and practically ran out of the car. Just as she was reaching the front door of the school, she heard her dad honk the car horn behind her. She whipped around to see him grinning and giving her two thumbs up. “Stand tall Cass!” he shouted.

She couldn’t help but to smile and return the gesture. “Show Mr.Pym what you can do Dad!” she replied. She opened the door walked inside, just as the tardy bell was ringing. Despite the fact that she was late on her first day, something that never would have happened with her mom, she felt better knowing that her dad had driven her to her first day of ninth grade and made her late, making a new memory for later down the road.

She adjusted the straps on her backpack and walked past the hideously colored school mascot floor mosaic, into the front office to get a late pass and start her first day as a freshmen.

 

* * *

“GOOD MORNING XAVIER FIGHTING PHOENIXES! WELCOME TO ANOTHER YEAR OF BEING HERE FOR EIGHT HOURS, FIVE DAYS A WEEK FOR ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY DAYS!”

Ms.Lewis’ first day of school announcements were always the loudest of the year, but after enduring them once a year for four years straight, Elijah just considered them to be another part of what made his school so special.

“Just when you  think she’d get tired of yelling into a mic, she comes back stronger than ever on the first day.” Tommy said next to him.

“Well if you’re getting paid well enough, I guess you enjoy it.” Elijah said. “Is that so? Cause last time I checked, teachers salaries are shit.” Tommy continued.

Elijah just shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe she just loves the job.”

They sat back and listened to the rest of the announcements echo through the gymnasium. Elijah hated the fact that he had gym first period on his first day back, but it was partially his fault. Had he not put off taking a physical education class until his senior year, he probably would  have had a free period instead.

“I’m sure that all you kiddos are just as excited as I am to be back in this cement block,” Ms.Lewis continued. “But regardless of your feelings, we’re here to have another great year together!”

“Sometimes I envy her enthusiasm about this place.” Tommy sighed.

“Well you’ve got another two years to work up those happy feelings about this place, so it might work out.” Elijah teased him. Tommy rolled his eyes. “Well I sure as hell envy the fact that you get to leave this place in nine months. I swear I’m gonna go insane if I have to see that dumb phoenix for the next two years. Maybe I can pull a Mr.Summers and go blind.”

Elijah sucked in his breath at the comment. “Too far?” Tommy asked. “Yeah man. Reel it back in a little.” Elijah said.

They sat in silence for the rest of the announcements alongside the rest of those students unfortunate enough to be stuck in gym for first period with Elijah and Tommy. Although he would be stuck in gym first thing in the morning and would have to go through the rest of the day smelling like a sweaty sock, Elijah counted himself lucky that it was only the first day and he didn’t have to actually dress out today.

Ms.Lewis brought the announcements to an end with something about dead poets and Robin Williams. “In the words of the great Miss Carter, ‘God rest his soul’. Stay classy kiddos!” the PA clicked off.

“Is she talking about Beyonce?” Tommy asked.

“I listen to Beyonce on the regular and I’m pretty sure she’s never said anything about Robin Williams in any of her songs.” Elijah answered. “Probably just another inside joke among the teachers.”

Tommy exhaled through his nose. “Well, by the looks of it, the new guy is just as confused as we are.” he pointed to the silver haired gym teacher who was standing to Coach Odinson on the other side of the gym. “Who is that guy anyways?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Almost as if summoned by Elijah and Tommy’s conversation, the two men walked to the center of the gym and began to address the students that were sitting in the bleachers awaiting further instructions.

“Good morning students! I assume that you all enjoyed the announcements very much.” Coach Odinson belted out, his voice echoing off the gym walls.

Although this was Elijah’s first time taking a physical education class, he knew plenty about Coach Odinson’s Shakespeare-in-the-park speech patterns (which was mostly due to having Mr.Stark for Trigonometry last year). He often thought that it should have been him directing the school’s plays and not Ms.Lewis based on the way he talked.

“He talks like he swallowed a copy of _Othello_ for breakfast.” Elijah leaned over and whispered to Tommy. His friend snorted but quickly covered it up with  cough. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t rub off on Tin Man here.”

“Most of you know who I am,but if you do not, allow me to introduce myself. I am Thor Odinson, or Coach Odinson to you all.”

“Can we just call you Coach Odin?” one kid asked from the top of the bleachers.

“If that is what you prefer.”

“What about Thunderhead?” another kid shouted. Elijah snorted a laugh. Most of the upperclassmen knew that Thunderhead was the nickname that the rest of the staff called Coach Odinson. He’d heard several students before refer to him by that name whenever they weren’t around him, but none bold enough to say it to his face.

The gym coach chuckled. “Only if you desire to spend your first weekend of the year in detention with Mr.Rogers and I.” The kid’s lack of reply answered for itself. “That’s what I thought. Now, as I was saying I will be your gym teacher for the year.” he made a gesture at the silver haired man standing beside him. “This, is Coach Maximoff. He’ll be assisting me throughout the year and coaching the track team as well.”

“What?” Tommy blurted out. “What happened to Coach Rand?”

“There was a family matter and he had to leave.” Coach Odinson replied. “It was very short notice during the middle of the summer.”

Elijah had known that there were going to be two new teachers at the school this year, the school’s monthly newsletter made sure that all of the new students got the news in advance. But Elijah hadn’t paid any attention to it, doubting that the change was going to affect him. Now he was thinking about his friend, and Tommy’s twin brother, Billy, and the close bond he’d had with the art teacher last year. The news of Ms.Parker’s retirement came as a shock to everyone,especially the biology teacher, Mr.Parker who was her nephew, but he hadn’t thought that Coach Rand would just get up and leave too.

“I give my apologies on his behalf to any of you who are offended by his absence, but the matters at his hands were simply more pressing.” Coach Odinson finished.

Both boys leaned back against the bleachers and listened as the coach went on and on about gym rules,grading and mandatory activities. Elijah wasn’t listening, it was all things he could figure out on his own. Even though the new track coach didn’t affect Elijah much, he couldn’t help but feel a gut wrenching feeling at hearing the news that Coach Rand was gone. The former track coach used to help alongside Coach Logan on the baseball team and hearing of his departure was disheartening.

Sometime later,the bell finally rang,releasing the class for the day. Elijah and Tommy walked out from the gym quietly, both of them wondering what on Earth could have happened for Coach Rand to suddenly get up and leave just like that.

“First Billy’s favorite teacher and now my coach.” Tommy said. “Kinda makes you wonder what the rest of the year is gonna be like with everyone dropping off like that. My money is on Dr.Banner or Mr.Wilson leaving next.”

“If you’re lucky, Mr.Summers will leave before you have to suffer through him for history.” Elijah said.

“Nobody here gets that lucky.”

Elijah gave a quick goodbye to Tommy before turning off down the hallway to go to Mr.Coulson for economics. He was relieved to see that he and his friend,Kate, shared the same class, making the news of his previous class seem a bit less heavy. Despite Kate’s story about her drive to school and her chat with Mr.Stark,Tommy’s parting words were still resounded in Elijah’s head throughout the entirety of the class. He knew that he was just being bitter about his favorite staff member at the school leaving without notice, but he couldn’t help but feel that there was something much deeper and heavier behind his words.

* * *

Third period always dragged by the slowest. Billy never knew if it was because it was the last class before lunch or because it was he had to sit through his foreign language class for ninety minutes. Whatever the reason, he felt as if time was working against him as he waited for the bell to dismiss him to lunch.

Another sophomore that Billy hadn’t seen around school kicked his chair leg. He turned his head from the front of the room where Ms.Romanoff was going over the curriculum for the year to face the boy.  

“Will you cut it out?” he whispered harshly. “Cut what out?” Billy asked.

“You keep shaking your leg dumb ass. It’s driving me crazy.”

“I’ll stop as soon as you learn to ignore it.” Billy retorted, not appreciating the kid’s tone.

“How about the both of you stop arguing.”

Billy snapped his head towards the front of the class to see Ms.Romanoff and just about the rest of the class looking back at him. He should’ve known better than to talk during class. no matter how quiet you would try to talk, she’d hear you even if she was outside on the phone.

“Sorry Ms.Romanoff.” Billy and the boy said in unison.

“Just try to keep your arguments outside of this classroom,” she said, “It’s too early in the day for anyone to be arguing.”

Billy tried not to sigh too loudly, fearing that she’d hear that too and think he was talking back. For the rest of class, he sat back, not saying a word and impatiently watching the clock, desperately waiting for one fifteen to roll around.

Just as he was about to pray to whatever gods controlled time (who he was pretty sure was Kronos), the lunch bell rang. Billy threw what little supplies he’d brought with him and bolted for the door. He was about to push past the kid who’d been bothering him at the beginning of class and make a dash for the door when Ms.Romanoff called his name.

“Mr.Kaplan,” she called, calmly,but enough for him to know he couldn’t pretend he didn’t hear her, “Stay behind for a moment will you.”

He turned on his heel to face her desk. “I actually have somewhere to be in a couple of minutes, and I don’t wanna be late so,”

“You’ll only be late if you keep stalling.” she said.

He didn’t want to admit that she was right, but sucked it up and moved out of the doorway to let his classmates pass him. When the last student was gone, she gestured to one of the desks in front of her. He took a seat and waited for her to continue.

“If this is about disrupting class earlier, I just wanna say I’m sorry.” he said.

“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. I was going to offer you a proposition.” Ms.Romanoff told him.

He raised an eyebrow at the comment. “Is this a Renaissance drama or Western?” Ms.Romanoff let out a short laugh. “No, nothing like that. I wanna talk about you.”

Billy had no clue as to what direction this conversation could take. In the two years that he’d had her class, he’d never drawn much attention to himself, so he figured that she wasn’t going to talk about him dropping the class or taking a placement test for honors. Or maybe she was going to finally confront him about the time last year when he and his twin brother, Tommy, had switched places for a day and Tommy had told the school’s substitute, Mr.Wilson, a not-so-classroom-friendly pickup line in Icelandic. Regardless of what she’d held him back for, he was growing more irritated than curious at the fact that he was still in class instead of on his way to backend of the school.

“I understand that you and Mrs.Parker were very close last year.” she started. Billy’s shoulders sagged at the mention of the retired art teacher who’d he’d grown attached to during his freshman year. He’d been heartbroken when he learned that she was retiring without any warning. She had just packed and hit the road running, like so many other people in his life.

“I was one of the best freshmen in the art class,” he said, “she liked to give me tips on how to improve my art and what not.”

Ms.Romanoff nodded her head. “Well, I’m sure that you’ve seen that there’s a new art teacher based on your schedule.”

“Ms.Maxine?”

“Ms.Maximoff.” she corrected. “She’s Italian.”

“Doesn’t sound like an Italian name.”

“No one thinks Kate’s Korean because of her last name.”

“Fair enough.”

“Last names aside, you should go talk to her, show her your art, see if you can get the art club back on its feet now that May is gone.” she continued.

“Clubs don’t start back up for another two weeks.”

“True, but my point is, you should go talk to Ms.Maximoff. I know how much you love art and I think it’d be good for you to at least go and talk to her.”

Billy chewed the inside of his lip, considering her offer. Well, it was more of a suggestion than an offer, but a tempting one still. He’d spent the entire summer improving his art, eager to show how much he had improved, even though he knew there’d be a completely unfamiliar face who would either love him or hate him.

_First impressions are the lasting ones._ He thought. Finally, he nodded and spoke up again. “I’ll try to make it down there by the end of the day.” he said. “Tommy’s meeting up with the new track coach and I’ll be here until he’s done with that.”

A small smile crept onto Ms.Romanoff’s face. “Well that’s good to hear. I’m sure that you and Ms.Maximoff will get along fine.”

“That’s the plan. Am I free to go now?”

She gestured towards the door and he wasted no time excusing himself and taking off down the back stairwell. The back halls of the school were empty due to the fact that half of the school was at lunch. He moved quickly but quietly, careful to disturb the classes that were in session. Once he reached the backdoor, he took an empty binder from his backpack and wedged it between the doorframe to keep it propped open. He gave one quick glance over his shoulder before squeezing between the gap in the door and stepping outside.

“Reunited and it feels so good.” Billy felt someone’s hand interlock their fingers with his. He turned to see his boyfriend, Teddy Altman,standing behind him. Billy couldn’t help but roll his eyes at Teddy’s gesture.

“If you’re shooting for romantic, then don’t ask me to meet you behind the school during lunch next time.” Billy said. “Or at least bring me a box of chocolate or something.”

Teddy pinched Billy’s hand,causing him to wince and pull away from his grip. “What was that for?”

“For ruining my romantic gesture. You gotta at least give me props for trying.” Teddy defended. “And I did get you something.” He slung his backpack off his shoulders and pulled a crumpled brown lunch bag out. “Happy Summer Reunion.”

Billy laughed. “Are we making up our own celebrations now?”

“Well until you get over whatever grudge against Valentine’s Day, I guess I’ll have to.”

Billy rolled his eyes and took the bag from Teddy. He opened it and was too grateful for words for what was in the bag: one half of a sub sandwich.

He stuck his nose into the bag and inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of the fresh bread and cheese. Billy had made sure to eat a big breakfast,knowing that he’d probably forego lunch to hang out with Teddy or his brother, but the sight and smell of the sandwich made his breakfast seem long gone (and the fact that he’d eaten at 7:45 and it was now 1:12).

“Did you make this? There’s no way this is from Jersey Mike’s.” Billy said.

“Yup. I was late this morning making them.” He pulled another bag out from his backpack,surely enough there was another sub sandwich in it. “Look,I know it’s not much,but I’m on a budget.”

Billy smiled and leaned forward onto his toes to kiss Teddy. “I love it. I really do, and not just because I haven’t eaten in seven hours.”

“Well I guess you must be extra glad that I decided to do this,aren’t you?” Teddy teased.

“Just makes me even more glad that you came over to talk to me last year in art class.” Billy said. They kissed again before sitting against the brick wall and swapping stories about their summer adventures and hopes for the new year. Billy had heard the stories of how the first day of school would determine one’s luck for the rest of the year,but based on how his day was going,he wasn’t too concerned about what lay ahead. All he cared about was the moment he was sharing with his boyfriend and one hell of a turkey sub between classes, wishing that he would have many more like them before the end of the year.

* * *

Wade loved the back to school rush, parents and students would be in every store buying up supplies, snacks for lunch and those new expensive sneakers some company had just put out to top off their first day outfits. All of the crowds at every retail store and Staples in the city left one of his favorite places completely empty; the public library.

Now that all of the summer reading programs were done for the year and high school students had given up on rushing to read whatever was on their summer reading lists, the public library had practically become a ghost town. It gave him plenty of time to use the free wifi undisturbed and actually focus on the task he had at hand, the essays for his summer classes.

Since he didn’t have to usually have to  go back to work at Xavier’s for two weeks at best at the start of the year, he used the time to catch up on any homework for his classes that he may have needed to make up or finish since he didn’t have internet at home. It always worked out pretty well until someone would inevitably call in sick or some other event that needed them absent from work and he’d have to forego his homework to turn up bright eyed and bushy tailed in whatever teacher’s class he needed to substitute for. Whenever he’d get free time during the day, he’d go to Darcy’s classroom where he knew he could work in peace in her office.

True, he was the resident rodeo clown at Xavier’s, but that’s just how he was. He’d gained the reputation of being the smiling face and jokester in middle school and it had stuck ever since, even when he was attending community college, which eventually led to him flunking out.

Wade stared at the unfinished paragraph on page seven of what was supposed to be a ten page essay on analytical essay that he had to analyze (sometimes he wondered if his professors were just giving him busy work (an analytical essay on a freaking _analytical essay,_ classy). He had typed and retyped the paragraph dozens of times, but each attempt seemed as futile as the previous. He considered giving up for the day, he had written those seven pages in the past three hours and happy hour at Sonic was creeping to a close, but he knew that if he stopped now, it would take a miracle to get him to start working on the paper again (or another heated email from his professors about unfinished work).

He muttered a swear under his breath before saving his work and gathering his stuff from the table he was at. He figured there was no use in pushing himself harder than he already was and continuing to get no results. Besides, he still had another two weeks before the essay was due and was impressed by the fact that he had managed to get so much done in one day, now he could focus on that daunting book work for his statistics class. Note to self, he thought. Get on Stark-buck’s good side for help with homework.

He waved goodbye to the elderly librarians who had grown accustomed to his presence over the past few months and headed towards the exit. Despite it being a quarter to seven, the sun blazed as if it were still noon.

“At least the bus has AC.” he muttered to himself, remembering Clint’s complaints about his car’s broken AC unit. He had half a mind to refer him to a mechanic buddy of his, but also remembered that the history teacher was still pretty salty about Apple Flavored Soda and wasn’t likely to forget it until one of them was six feet under.

Just like clockwork, the bus was at the corner not even five minutes later. He boarded, dropped a dollar fifty in quarters into the dropbox and tried to keep his balance as the bus took off down the street.

He took his phone out and began to scroll down Twitter to cure the boredom that always set in on his bus rides. Nothing was new, just Darcy’s tweets about the incoming freshmen class and the ‘longer than a sick kid’s snot trail’ faculty meeting (her words,not his). He sometimes envied the full time teachers at Xavier’s. Despite the fact that he’d been working at the school for years now, he still felt like an outsider on the rare occasions when he’d be invited to social gatherings or happy hours at Sonic or Yesterday’s. Even during the faculty meetings that he’d attend once in a blue moon left him feeling like he was standing on the outside looking in.

“The many woes of being a substitute.” Darcy would jokingly call them whenever he’d open up about his feelings for the job.

He chuckled softly as the thought of the eclectic theater teacher went through his mind. No matter how many bad days he’d have filled with disrespectful students and passive aggressive coworkers, being with Darcy would always brighten the worst of his days. Sure she could be loud and abrasive most of the time,but he appreciated that from her. In a profession that most people saw aseither a financial death sentence or somewhere that only truly crazy people dared to work (okay,that part was mostly true) it was nice to have someone who never let the world beat them down too badly.

The bus came to a screeching halt as the driver stopped to pick up more passengers, shocking Wade out of his trance. His phone rang down in his lap, it was Darcy. “Speak of the devil.” Wade laughed to himself. He answered and waited for whatever commotion was going on in the background to cease enough for his greeting to be heard.

“What the hell are you guys up to now?” he asked.

“Wade, you have got to get down here fast.” Darcy rushed from the other end. “We’re at Yesterday’s and the new guy Thor and Steve are trying to see who can do the most shots in two minutes.”

The temptation to forego his schoolwork and go dick around with his,or technically,Darcy’s co-workers. _I’ve done enough for one day._ He thought. _Why not dick around with Mr.Roger’s neighborhood and Thunderhead?_ He looked at the street sign hanging from the stop light up ahead, the bus was about two miles down from where Yesterday’s was located,he could practically hear the sound of glasses clinking from how close he was,although he was probably just hearing the background noise from Darcy’s phone. Wade smirked to himself and answered her call to action.

“I’ll be there in like five minutes. Think you can hold ‘em off?”

“I’ll try to stall the bartender for a minute,but I can make no promises.” she said. “And make sure you’ve got memory on your phone to record this,I’ll need a copy when this is all said and done.”

“Why not record it on your phone?”

“This is no time for questions Wilson! I’ll do my part and you do yours. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am.” Wade smiled. “See you in a couple of minutes,hopefully.” he hung up the phone and started to move to the front of the bus.

“Excuse me,but do you think you could swing by Yesterday’s bar?” he asked the driver.

“Ain’t it a bit early for you to be drinking son?” the driver asked, glancing back at him in the rear view mirror.

“We all treat our illnesses differently. And I self prescribe my co-workers embarrassment.”

The driver sighed and rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’ll be there in another stop.”

Wade held onto the handrail as the bus jerked into motion again. When they finally reached Yesterday’s he practically sprinted off the bus and to the entrance,ready to see Steve get wrecked by Thor (again) and the only person who made him stick around Xavier’s.

******  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again,sorry for this being late,but as i stated in the previous update,i have started college and updates will become more and more spaced out. hopefully i can get a few one shots thrown up in here and the next couple of chapters cranked out pretty fast. have patience,but i will finish this in due time.


	6. Not So Secret Organizations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains some homophobic language. please read at your own risk.

“Last but not least,” Darcy’s voice said over the PA, “let’s not forget that school clubs will be starting up again next week. So whether you’re a teacher or student with an idea for a new club, go see Ms. Hill in the main office or Ms. Potts in the library for club submission forms. Deadline for submissions is next Thursday, so get to it! Word of the day is ‘interstellar’ because I saw a trailer for that movie last night on YouTube and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Stay classy kids!”

The PA system clicked off and the art room fell back into its usual morning routine. Wanda’s first class of the day was always the sculpting class, so things were usually pretty quiet and organized. There was the occasional outburst whenever a student would mess up the piece they were working on or would get into a spat with another classmate about elbow space or stolen supplies, but overall, it was an easy class to manage.

It had been two weeks since classes started and things were going along better than anything Wanda had witnessed in the days leading up to the start of the year. With the exception of Pietro and Steve getting destroyed in a drinking contest by Thor,everything was going along smoothly.

“Ms.Maximoff,” one girl called. Wanda started across the room to the student that had beckoned her. “What do you need help with?” She crouched down next to the girl’s working space. Wanda had gotten to know this one student particularly well over the past few days. She was one of the less proficient students and would constantly be asking for help. Wanda had forgotten her name among the one hundred and forty nine other students that she had to teach,but she did know that she was a sophomore.

The girl was sketching out a design for the sculpture project that she was behind on. It looked pretty good compared to the portfolio that she had turned in at the end of last year that Wanda had skimmed through during the first week of school.

“That’s very nice,” Wanda cocked her head to the side to get a glimpse at the name written in the lower left hand corner of the paper, “Ann. You’re getting along very nicely. Why’d you need my help?”

Ann shook her head. “I didn’t need your help,I just wanted to ask if I could be excused.” Wanda looked up from Ann’s paper. She felt ashamed that she hadn’t noticed Ann’s lack of eye contact that she was clenching the pencil in her hand so tightly that her knuckles were white. She also hadn’t noticed that the students seated at the table around her,a normally talkative bunch,were unusually quiet and were paying more attention to their work than usual.

Wanda turned her attention back to Ann. “Of course. Do you need me to write you a pass?” Ann shook her head and stood up abruptly,walked towards the door,grabbed the bathroom pass hanging on the doorknob and walked out without another word.

She knit her eyebrows together and rose from her position beside the table. The other kids seated there were watching as she stood there,obviously trying to not bring attention to themselves but were failing miserably.

One of the students that had made a reputation for himself before classes had even started stood out in particular. Alec was his name if she remembered correctly, was a bit too intrigued with the lump of clay in front of him. This was also the same student who had proclaimed how art was ‘a fucking waste of his time’ on the third day of classes and proceeded to tell dick jokes for the remainder of the period.

She remembered the pained groans from Pietro and a few other of her co-workers who had had the such joyous privilege to have his brother years before.

“I had to teach him during math camp this summer,” she recalled Tony telling her at Yesterday’s after the first day of school had come to an end. “I’m pretty sure he’s made my blood pressure rise higher than that time I got into a chicken wing eating contest.”

“Just be glad you didn’t have his brother.” Natasha grumbled into her glass of Long Island Iced Tea. “Was it him or one of the Kaplan twins that told Wade that one sex joke about the guy and the horse?” Clint had asked.

“Doesn’t matter who it was, all I know is that that kid is probably gonna be no better than his brother.”

Wanda held in the sigh that was trying to escape her. She had a personal mantra to not judge students before getting to know them and she was still trying to hold onto that two weeks into the school year. But after hearing all of the things from her co-workers and even her own brother, she couldn’t help but to be a bit skeptical about Alec’s behavior.

“Alec,” she said at last, “step outside for a moment.”

The boy’s head shot up in an instant, ready to defend himself. “I didn’t do anything!” he shouted loud enough that the entire class looked up from their work to see what the commotion was about. Wanda inhaled, careful to not sound irritated in her response. “I didn’t say that you did do anything, all I said was for you to step outside for a moment.” she said.

“I didn’t do say anything to that girl.” he defended.

“Didn’t say that you did, but no you made yourself prime suspect. So I suggest you get up and step outside before I call someone down here to escort you to Ms.Hill’s office.” she said curtly.

Alec groaned and threw down his clay in a dramatic fashion before stepping past her to walk out the door, making a scene of himself by slamming the door on the way out.

“Gesù cristo cazzo.” she muttered to herself, hoping none of her students knew swears in Italian. “You guys keep working, I’ll be back in a moment.” she turned from her class and headed out the door for Alec.

He was leaning against the wall pouting much like a kindergartner. “I didn’t do anything.” he said again. The kid was like a broken record, always repeating and bad at hiding the fact that his tracks weren’t working (okay it wasn’t the best analogy but the only one that Wanda could apply to the situation).

“You’re not a very good liar.” Wanda said, pacing towards him. “But that’s not why I asked you out here. I just want you to tell me what happened in class.”

“Why? If I do then you’re just gonna call my parents to come and get me so what’s the point?” Alec retorted.

Wanda bit down on her tongue to hold back the string of curses that were ready to fill her response. She pinched the bridge of her nose, reminding herself that she needed to keep her cool and this job.

“Listen, it’d be a lot easier on me, you, and everyone in the front office if you’d just explain to me what you did instead of going through hoops to defend yourself. It’s the beginning of the year, you’re a freshmen and people do stupid things sometimes and,”  she paused mid sentence at a sound at the end of the hallway. It sounded like someone was crying in the bathroom. “Ann.” Wanda muttered under her breath.

She was torn between leaving Alec there to go check on Ann or letting the girl remain by herself while she interrogated Alec. Her crying continued to echo down the hallway, softly, but noticeable enough that someone would be out eventually to investigate the source of the noise.

She snapped her attention back to Alec in an instant, suddenly even more frustrated than before. “What happened? And this is my last time asking nicely so don’t lie to me.”

Alec’s disgruntled expression didn’t change in the slightest, but he answered her promptly. “I didn’t even do anything that bad. Me and Will were just talking and she had to butt her nose into our business and she got all upset when I called her a faggot.”

Wanda’s heart damn near stopped when she heard that word. She was taken aback by his words and was caught somewhere between despair for Ann and rage. How could everyone else around her just let him say that to her and not at least bring it to her attention as it was happening? How had those course of events managed to go right over her head?

She tried to keep her body language neutral and calm, but she couldn’t help but to ball up her fists after hearing what Alec had said. “Stay right here.” she snapped.

“Am I not in trouble or what?” Alec asked.

“I said stay right there.” she marched across the hall and pounded on Bruce’s room door. The doctor answered promptly, looking rather concerned at the sudden disruption of his class. She could see his students inside the classroom leaning forward to see who had interrupted their oh so interesting advanced physics class.

Bruce turned back into his doorway to give his kids instructions to continue working quietly while he was out. He stepped through the doorway and shut the door behind him. Wanda could hear a few groans from his students as they were cut off from the conversation.

“What’d you need?” Bruce asked.

“I just need you to watch my class for a couple of minutes while I take that one,” she jabbed a finger over her shoulder towards Alec, “down to Maria.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong!” he shouted.

Wanda snapped her head around to him. “Calling Ann that slur is what you did wrong!” she shouted. Alec clearly hadn’t anticipated her angry response. He shrank back against the wall, clearly in shock as she continued. “I don’t care what you think you didn’t do. You bullied her to the point of tears and I don’t accept that kind of behavior in my classroom!”

She turned back to face Bruce who as looking just as surprised as Alec had been. He cleared his throat and started speaking, trying to clear up the tension that had built up in the narrow hallway. “So, uh, do you need any referral sheets? I always have extra.”

“That won’t be necessary. Just watch my kids while I take him down to the office.” She turned and went back across the hall to her own classroom, walking quickly to her desk to grab a carbon copy referral sheet and started filling it out. Bruce walked into the class quietly, toting Alec along with him and waiting for Wanda to give him further instruction. When she was finished she stood at the front of the class and addressed her students as calmly as she could despite her current mood.

“Dr.Banner is going to watch you all while I go handle something. Don’t get too crazy or I’ll be taking another one of you with me down to Ms.Hill’s office as well.”

The class gave a somber “yes ma’am” in response. “Good.” She walked over to Alec who was standing in the doorway with Bruce. “Let’s go.” she had to refrain from grabbing him by the shirt sleeve and dragging him down the hall, something she’d done many times with similar students at her old job at the Catholic school.

She walked briskly down the hall, calling for Alec to catch up every time she couldn’t see him right in her peripheral. When they finally reached the office, she pushed the door open harshly, causing Maria to drop the pile of paperwork she was going through in surprise.

“Sorry about that.” Wanda apologized.

“It’s fine, worse things have happened today.” Maria said, ducking beneath her desk to pick up the papers. “What can I do for you?”

Wanda placed the referral on her desk. “I have a student to report.” Maria’s head popped up from under the desk. When she saw Alec she sighed. “So early in the school year Alec?” Maria said. “I thought you said you were gonna clean up your act in high school.”

“The three strike rule is still a thing right?” Alec grumbled.

“Hmm, yeah. But I’m still going to have to send you to Mr.Wilson.” Maria replied. Alec groaned loudly. “I still don’t get what I did wrong! This isn’t fair!”

Maria raised an eyebrow and took the referral off the desk, quietly reading over it. “Looks to me like you did something very wrong Alec. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get in school suspension for this.” she passed the paper back across the desk to Wanda. “Take this to Wilson, he’ll take it from there.”

“Thank you.” Wanda took the paper and walked towards down the short narrow hallway to  where Sam’s office was located. She knocked on the door and waited for him to let them in.

“It’s open.” Sam called from the other side of the door. Wanda pushed the door open and gestured for Alec to go in ahead of her.

“Alec,” Sam started, “I thought I would’ve gotten at least a good month before I’d have to see you again. What happened to bring you here so early?”

“Some people can’t take a joke.” Alec grumbled as he dropped himself down into one of the chairs in front of Sam’s desk. “Homophobic slurs aren’t jokes Alec.” Wanda said, passing the referral sheet to Sam. The guidance counselor sighed as he examined the referral. “You know how seriously we take bullying here don’t you?”

“It’s not bullying if it’s true.” Alec scoffed.

Wanda clenched her hands into fists. What the fuck was wrong with this kid? She’d thought she’d met small minded and bigoted people while working at Catholic school, but Alec was a new breed of awful that she’d never dealt with before, especially not in someone so young. At least in the Catholic school she worked at the students were taught to be tolerant in school towards all of their students, even if the teachers and staff didn’t necessarily follow that rule. She knew that the source of his bigotry came from home and that was where she would have to go next to either stamp out this problem before the school year progressed. She made a note to herself to include scheduling a parent teacher conference in the call she was going to make to Alec’s parents later today.

“Yeah well it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, that doesn’t give you the right to call anyone anything that makes them uncomfortable.” Sam said sternly. “So sorry,not sorry,but I’m calling your parents and you’re getting three days of in school suspension next week.”

Alec raised his voice to a shout.“What? That’s not fair!”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Well then,next time don’t say rude things to your classmates.”

“It’s not my fault that some stupid faggot can’t handle hearing what she is!”

Sam leaned forward in his desk chair, looking Alec dead in the eyes. “Say that word one more time and I’ll make sure that you’ll be in front of the hearing board by the end of next week.”

Alec leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, making a big gesture of showing how angry he was over the situation. Wanda stood there utterly perplexed and impressed with Sam. She’d only known him for three weeks now and had gotten to know him as a friendly, laid back guy. Seeing him this strict with students was new to her, but she appreciated that he took the situation seriously.

He signed off on the referral and gave the top half of the carbon copy back to Wanda. “You should probably get back to your class now,I can take it from here.”

“Thank you.” Wanda said before turning to walk hurriedly out of the office.

“You finally get to see Wilson in his prime?” Maria asked as she walked past the front desk. “Scary isn’t it?”

Wanda paused as she turned the doorknob to exit the office. “Hm,not scary, just not what I expected from him.”

“Yeah well, that’s pretty much how everyone operates around here.” Maria said.

“What’d you mean by that?”

She shrugged her shoulders as she shuffled through another pile of paperwork on her desk. “You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

* * *

Once back in her classroom,Wanda saw that Ann had come back from the bathroom. Her eyes were a bit red and her cheeks flushed,but otherwise she seemed okay. She thanked Bruce for watching her kids while she was gone and the rest of class followed without incident. At long last the bell finally rung,bringing her first period class to an end.

As the students for her second period class slowly began to trickle through the door and she was setting out watercolors and cardstock,someone came over and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. Wanda turned to see Ann standing behind her.

“Are you feeling alright?” Wanda asked her. Ann nodded her head sheepishly. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have made as big of a deal out of that as I did though. It’s not the first time that’s happened.”

Wanda’s heart broke at the last sentence. This poor girl had been bullied so much that she thought she was overreacting for having valid feelings. She ran word after word through her head,trying to find the right thing to say to her.

Wanda shook her head. “Your reaction was completely valid. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Ann looked genuinely shocked at Wanda’s response. “Uh, thank you for that. I guess I’ll see you next class. Bye Ms.Maximoff.” Wanda waved her off as she turned and walked out of the room.

The bell for second period classes to begin sounded off in the hall, signaling Wanda’s students to settle down for the next ninety minutes. The class passed without incident (if she excused one of the seniors spilling an entire bottle acrylic paint on their jeans) and at long last her free period was upon her.

Over the past two weeks, she’d gotten into the habit of going across the hall to Bruce’s room. They usually just shared coffee from Tony’s room or just swap stories about previous teaching jobs. Today was no different, she grabbed her coffee mug from the desk drawer and headed across the hall. His door was wide open,but the doctor was nowhere in sight.

“Bruce.” she called into the classroom. She stepped inside glancing around to see if he was at the back of the room,nothing. “Where’d he go?”

Footsteps hurrying down the hall turned Wanda’s attention back towards the door. Tony had walked into the classroom,panting and looking like he’d just run a mile. He bent over and held up a finger at Wanda.

“Give me a second.” he heaved trying to catch his breath.

Wanda rolled her eyes at the math teacher. In the short two weeks school had been in session,she’d learned it was better to either ignore Tony’s shenanigans or wait for someone else to explain them rather than her trying to understand them herself.

After a couple of seconds, Tony stood up straight and gave one final exhale. “Where’s Banner?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Wanda said.

“Oh yeah, I forgot you two have your at-work-neighbors coffee breaks.” Tony scoffed. “I just wish I could be invited too.”

“Don’t you have a classroom of AP kids to torture?” she asked sarcastically.

“I sent them to the computer lab to work on some online stuff so I could come talk to Strut.”

Wanda raised an eyebrow. She knew that ‘Strut’ was obviously Bruce, but the nickname caught her off guard. Nicknames weren’t uncommon among the staff, she’d hear Pietro be referred to as Speedy Bastard at least three times a day before lunch and Maria called Slushie Queen on the regular.  

“I don’t even want to know the origin behind that one.” Wanda sighed.

Tony smiled. “You sure? Cause it’s a fun one. Even more fun than mine.”

“If I didn’t love having a working computer, I would have a good comeback for you.”

“Hm, well, come back later if you wanna hear it.” Wanda rolled her eyes at the pun. “I’m off to continue the search for the ever evasive Strut. Which shouldn’t be too hard. He’s either here, the copy room or hanging with Mary Jane behind the school.”

“Stop talking about me when I’m not around.”

Tony’s head whipped around and a smile lit up his face. “The man of the hour and a half free period!”

Bruce came into view in the doorway, looking as ruffled and tired as usual. He gave a quick wave to Wanda before turning to Tony. “Don’t you have a class right now?” he asked.

“They’ll be fine, Pepper’s watching them for me in the computer lab.”

Bruce sighed. “What was so important that you ditched the kids who need you to get an entire college credit?”

Tony turned from Bruce to Wanda. “Can you give us a minute please?”

“You aren’t even supposed to be down here.” Wanda replied. The older man shrugged his shoulders. “Fair enough, but I still need to talk to Strut about something.”

“First off,” Bruce interrupted, “What do you want to talk about?”

“It’s not a want it’s a need.” Tony answered. “Secondly, I needed to talk to you about June twenty eighth and Rússneska uppi.”

Wanda racked her brain trying to figure out what language Tony had just spoken in, but none came to mind. She instead clutched her mug in both hands and walked towards the door. “I’ll just go wait in my room.” she said. “And I didn’t know that Thor taught you Norwegian, Stark.” Her backhanded remark caused Tony to snort. “Well I hope whoever taught you Norwegian gets fired. Brush up on your languages sweetheart.”

Wanda narrowed her eyes at Tony. She opened her mouth to snap back at him but decided against it. It wasn’t worth her breath to go against the most petty teacher on the payroll. She went back across the hall, shutting the door behind her, sitting and waiting for Bruce to come to the door. After about five minutes she heard him knock on the door.

“It’s open.” she called from her desk where she’d started a doodle of a house dropping on a certain math teacher with a Keurig and goatee.

Bruce stepped inside and walked over to her desk, pulling up a chair to sit. He peered over the desk to look at her drawing and chuckled. “Feeling kinda salty about Tony?” he joked.

Wanda looked up from her picture. “How the hell have you two been friends for as long as you have?” she asked. “I swear him and Alec have to be long lost cousins or something.”

“He’s not that awful.” Bruce defended his friend. “I mean, sure he’s loud and messy and likes the Twilight Saga,”

Wanda snorted a laugh. “Stark likes that garbage?” Bruce held up his hands as if surrendering.“You didn’t hear it from me.”

Wanda couldn’t help but to keep laughing over the fact that the biggest egomaniac in existence liked shitty teen movies. This was the best news she could have hoped to hear all day.

“But speaking of Alec,” Bruce spoke up, “What was happened earlier?”

Wanda leaned back in her chair and let out a long sigh. “That kid is gonna make me swear in languages I don’t even know.”

“You sound like Natasha. She had the pleasure of teaching his brother last year.”

“Oh god, he isn’t still here is he?”

Bruce shook his head. “No. He graduated last year and I swear if Fury hadn’t threatened to make us all work summer school Tony would’ve thrown a ‘Will’s Finally Gone’ party.”

Wanda shook her head. “You guys are the worst.”

“I think you’ll be able to relate more around the times mid-terms roll around and some of these kids start to show their true colors.”

She exhaled through her nose,avoiding Bruce’s gaze. Talking down about students was something that she would never condone from any teacher or staff. It was their job to make sure students improved both academically and socially and at least try to make them better people when they leave than when they first came through those doors. After this morning however, she wasn’t so upset at how some of her co-workers felt and handled certain students.

“That kid is such a menace.” she started. “He thinks that his behavior acceptable, which it is one hundred percent isn’t, and he walks around here like he’s god’s gift to the world spewing all this crap about how art isn’t important and how it’s a waste of his fucking time.” She rattled on and on with no end in sight. Bruce sat quietly and listened, taking in every word and waiting for Wanda to finish before inserting his input.

“And on top of all that,” Wanda paused for a moment to allow herself to take a breath, “He somehow thinks it’s acceptable to call people god awful slurs that have caused kids to take their own lives and force them into the closet! Who the fuck does that!” She slumped back down in her chair, letting out a long breath that eventually transitioned into a groan. “I thought I’d had some rough kids in Catholic school, but this kid is a new breed of awful.”

“I would’ve thought it’d be the other way around.” Bruce said.

“You’d be surprised at what Pietro and I dealt with in Catholic school. As teacher and students.” She massaged her temples, trying to ease the tension and frustration that had built up inside her. “I just thought that at least in this day and age people would try to be a bit more discreet with their raging homophobia and whatever other bullshit they’re parents teach them.”

“Not everyone can be a saint Wanda.”

She let out a short laugh. “God, you sound like my mom.”

“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”

“Depends on which of her kids you are.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow, clearly confused at her comment. She shook her head and sat up in her chair. “Forget it.” She picked her pencil back up and aimlessly doodled a on the same picture as before, except this time there was a dragon sitting on a boy that looked too much like Alec for her liking. She muttered a swear under her breath and began to scratch out the drawing, rubbing so hard that the pencil ripped a hole through the paper.

“You need a better outlet for your anger.” Bruce said from the other side of the desk.

“Thank you Doctor Banner.” Wanda said sarcastically. “I didn’t think that you were gonna be that kind of doctor.”

“Just a joke Wanda.”

A sound resembling something to a European cop car siren rang out through the halls, signalling the end of third period and the first lunch period and the start of Wanda’s lunch duty. She groaned, dreading the fact that she’d have to watch over hundreds of students while trying to scarf down her own lunch, something she should’ve been doing instead of drawing her least favorite people getting crushed like the Wicked Witch of the East.

She pressed the balls of her hands to her eyes and rubbed them. “I’ve got a long day ahead of me.” she sighed.

“Well I wish you the best of luck and hope that you can make it to Stark-bucks before Steve gets there again.” Bruce said. The doctor stood and started out the door. “See you later Wanda.”

She gave a half hearted wave. “I’ll try to keep that in mind when I’m wrangling a bunch of freshmen in the lunch line.”  She stood and walked over to the chiffonier where she kept all of her belongings during the school day. “You know your day has been shitty when salt and vinegar chips are the highlight of your day.” she sighed to herself as she shut the chiffonier door and walked out of the room towards the cafeteria.

* * *

 “Oh god there he is.”

“Where?”

“That one next to kid in the OKC jersey. He’s got that wannabe Harry Styles haircut.”

“The one in the gross camo jacket?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

Billy craned his head over Tommy and Teddy’s hunched shoulders to get a better look at the freshman. “Oh god,” his face twisted into a disgusted expression. “He looks just like his asshole brother.”

“And here I thought we would be able to get rid of the Quenten family for at least a year.” Teddy sighed. “How the hell did he even get away from Mr.Wilson? I thought he got put in ISS for three days?”

“According to my sources, he has it for three days starting next week.” Tommy corrected. “So most unfortunately, we have to suffer through this kid for the rest of the week.”The trio of boys groaned loudly in unison, causing a few of the conversations at the tables around them to cease.

Billy had dealt with Alec’s older brother Will more than enough last year when word got around that he and Teddy had started dating. The only thing that made Will’s constant teasing and slurs from afar worse was at the beginning of second semester when he walked into Coach Logan’s personal health class to see Will and his band of bigoted goons two seats down from him. He had learned to put all of the terrible things that Will constantly threw his way past him, and was more than relieved when the seniors finally left two weeks before graduation and he was free from the reign of the Quenten family forever, or so he’d thought. It hadn’t taken long for word to get out that Will’s little brother was now a freshman and was just as bad, if not worse, as his older brother.

“I hear they get worse with age.” Billy remembered Teddy telling him as they’d shared stories about how god awful the Quenten brothers were. “His dad came down to the school last year raising hell and insisting that Will graduate even though that fucker had a D average for the entire year.”

“I know, I was in Mr.Parker’s biology class when it happened.” Tommy had sighed.

“Oh yeah, you wouldn’t shut up about that for weeks.” Teddy joked.

Knowing that there was a decent chance that he would encounter Alec at some point during the school year, Billy had looked over his shoulder constantly during the first two days of classes, praying that the little devil wouldn’t be on the roll. He’d been happier than a billionaire in a Swedish bank when he didn’t share any classes with him. But now there he was. A few tables down, yucking it up with some jersey clad pro-basketball-player-wannabes probably joking about something that wasn’t appropriate to joke about. In short, he fucking hated the entire Quenten lineage.

“I am not going through another year of being called ‘butt boy’ and ‘faggot’.” Billy grumbled.

“I thought butt boy was a good thing.” Tommy said.

Billy rolled his eyes. “You’re missing the point.”

“Well Ms.Maximoff already beat you to getting him for using that one,” Teddy interrupted before the brothers could get into an argument over gay slang.

Billy turned his attention to his boyfriend. “Ms.Maximoff? Ms.Maximoff the new art teacher with a bad accent?”

“I wouldn’t think there are too many Maximoffs running around here these days.” Teddy said sarcastically.

He raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t phantom Ms.Maximoff being one to take stern measures against students acting out of place in her class. Just the other day when some pretentious senior kept acting as if she were too good for her class, all Ms.Maximoff had done was send her to the main office and waited it out until she was sent back with a detention slip for that afternoon. He couldn’t even imagine how she would have handled Alec doing god knows what in her class this morning.

But as he continued to think about his teacher, the gears in his head started turning, churning up ideas for something he’d had in his mind since the beginning of last year.

He slapped his hand down on the table to grab the attention of Tommy and Teddy. “Jesus fuck man,” Tommy said, choking on his Dr.Pepper. “What was that for?”

“I needed to get your attention.”

“And saying ‘hey guys I need your attention’ was too much for you?” Teddy quipped.

“But I did get your attention didn’t I?”

“Yeah you did that and nearly caused me to inhale an entire bottle of Dr.Pepper.” Tommy wiped droplets of soda from around his mouth, still coughing and catching his breath from Tommy’s jump scare.

“Anyway, now that I have your attention,” Billy started.

“Attention my bleached asshole.” Tommy muttered. Tommy ignored him and continued. “Remember the thing that I wanted to make a thing but was too scared to make a thing because of all the things going on with Will?”

Tommy and Teddy shared perplexed looks. “You lost me at the thing about the thing.” Tommy said.

Billy groaned. “You know what thing that we came up with in first semester last year.”

“Ooh!” Tommy and Teddy said in unison. “You sure you wanna still do this though?” Teddy asked. “I mean, especially after all that went down last year I don’t think,”

Billyy held up a finger, signaling Teddy to stop. “Anything that happened last year is in the past and I don’t wanna talk about it. Besides, it’s a new year and I’ve got a mostly clean slate. This is my chance, our chance to finally make a change here and I think it’s about damn time we do so.”

Tommy nodded his head in agreement. “Alright little brother, I’m on board.”

“We’re twins dumbass.” Billy chided.

“I came out first.”

“Details on your birth later please.” Teddy spoke up. He reached across the table and grabbed Billy’s hand. “I think this is a great idea,” he said, “but how the hell are we going to do this with just the three of us?”

Fuck dang it. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Billy didn’t know many people outside of Teddy and Tommy’s friends, and that wasn’t a large group of people. He wasn’t even sure if they would be on board with helping them out. Not wanting to dampen the hopes of getting his idea off the ground, Tommy tried to seem as optimistic as possible. “We’ll be like the three musketeers!” Billy replied hopefully.

“You have no clue as to who else to ask do you?” Teddy asked, seeing straight through his front.

“Well lucky for you, I know someone who we can at least ask without much backlash.” Tommy said. Billy turned to his brother and saw him looking down at his phone. “It’s kind of a stretch cause I don’t really know them but it’s still worth a shot.”

“Well before you go off just telling people about our plans to take over the planet, who the hell are you trying to talk to?” Teddy asked.

“Just some girl who was in my personal finance class last year. Her name’s America or something like that. She’s cool and we talked about stuff like this from time to time and I don’t know if she’s down like that but she might be able to help us out. And she’s a senior so that might give us some leverage since she probably knows more people than all of us combined.”

“Alright, you handle that, Teddy and I will handle getting a host for the club.”

Tommy snorted through his nose. “Good luck with that. I can’t think of a single teacher here that isn’t already swamped with either another club or a fuck-ton of AP work.”

“Thanks for being so helpful in this situation Tommy.” Teddy said.

Tommy held up his hands. “Just throwing it out there. We’re really gonna have to work our asses off if we want this to get through by next week, you do know that right?”

“Ugh, whatever. You just focus on getting people who might be able to help us, I’ll get the host.”

The bell rang for the end of lunch and the beginning of fourth period which was ironically Billy’s art class with Ms.Maximoff. He stood from his seat and stuffed his lunch bag into his backpack. “We’re gonna get this done on time and in an orderly fashion.” he said in a matter-of-factly way. “I’m gonna make this work.”

“We’re gonna make this work.” Teddy added waving his hand between himself and Tommy. “This is a team effort.”

Billy sighed and rolled his eyes. “You know what I meant.” He leaned down and gave Teddy a quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll see you guys later and let you know the progress on potential club hosts.”

“I’ve got potential members.” Tommy added.

“I guess I’ll bring snacks or something.” Teddy concluded, standing from his seat. “Whatever, you two just let me know all the important stuff and try to include me in this in someway or another. I’ll see you later.”

“Same. I gotta get to Ms.Stacy’s class.” Tommy said. “Don’t fuck up your own club,alright?”

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Billy said. He turned and walked out of the cafeteria towards his last class for the day with much more anticipation and hope than he’d ever had before.

* * *

Three fifteen could not have come soon enough. Billy waited impatiently at his workspace, watching as his fellow classmates took what he thought was too long to clear out for the day. After a painstaking three minutes, the art room was completely empty, given the exception of himself and Ms.Maximoff. She couldn’t have noticed that he had stayed behind. She kept her back turned away from him as she started writing out the agenda for what he assumed was one of her classes for the next day.

Time to make some magic happen. He thought. He took a deep breath and rose slowly from his seat, walking quietly over to Ms.Maximoff.

“I know you’re still here William.” she said suddenly, startling Billy and causing him to stub his toe on a nearby table. She turned around with a sly grin on her face. “What gave me away?” Billy asked, trying to laugh off the pain.

“I grew up with a twin brother,” she admitted, “nothing gets past me.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Well that’s something we can both relate to.”

She placed the dry erase marker down onto the whiteboard tray and sat on a table a few feet away from him. “So, what causes you to stay after class today?”

Billy felt slightly guilty for not coming to her two weeks ago on the first day of school when Ms.Romanoff had first suggested he go to her about the art club. Now here he was about to ask her to help him host an entirely different club half a month later. Better late than never.

He cleared his throat and walked closer to his teacher. “I just wanted to ask if you could help me with something.”

“I’m going to need more details than that.”

Billy nodded, trying to find the correct way to go forward. “Well, uh, you know how clubs are starting up again next week right?”

“I am aware.”

He took a deep breath. “So, a couple of my friends and I were thinking about starting a club for this year.” Ms.Maximoff nodded slowly, moving her hand in a circular motion, gesturing for him to elaborate.

“It’s a gay pride club and we need someone to help us host it or else we don’t have anything, you know, club about.” Billy clenched his hands together behind his back, ready for her to say any variation of ‘yes’.

“Of course.”

Billy stood there, mouth gaping, unsure of what to say next. “Well that was easy.” he said.

“Were you expecting me to say no?” Ms.Maximoff asked.

“No no, it’s not that,” Billy rushed. “It’s just that I wasn’t really expecting such a quick answer.”

Ms.Maximoff let out a short laugh. “Well lucky for you, I make quick decisions.” She stood up from the table and placed a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “I like to make sure that all of my students feel safe and comfortable at school, because for some of them it’s the only place where they might be able to express themselves freely and be with other people like them.”

Billy’s eyes widened. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He hadn’t taken Ms.Maximoff to be one to be bigoted or have any prejudice against anyone (although the rumors floating around about her Catholic upbringing had made him skeptical more than once), but he wasn’t expecting such a thought out answer.

“So that’s a yes?” he asked.

“More or less. I’m sure that there’s some process that has to be done to get the club approved but other than that, yes.”

Billy had to hold back the urge to wrap his arms around Ms.Maximoff and hug her. Instead he shuffled on his feet and gave a quick thank you before walking back to the table he’d been at during class and gathering his belongings. “So you’ll put a word out to Ms.Hill about this?” he asked once more before leaving the classroom.

She nodded. “I’ll even ask if any other teachers want to help out too. The more the merrier.”

Billy couldn’t help but grin at her response. “Thank you again. You have no idea how much this is gonna mean to me and so many other kids here.”

“I have an idea of what the impact could be.” Ms.Maximoff replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of AP portfolios to grade so not to be rude but, you gotta go.”

“Okay. See you later Ms.Maximoff.” he gave one final wave before turning and walking out to door and towards the front of the school where Teddy, Tommy and his friend Elijah usually waited after school for their parents to pick them up. He couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face as he walked out of the school and was met with confused looks from his usual companions.

“What’s up with you?” Tommy asked. Billy ignored his brother and went straight to Teddy, planting a kiss on his lips right then and there. When he pulled away, Teddy’s face was completely red. “What was that for?” he asked.

Billy flung himself down on the school’s stone steps next to Teddy letting out a Dead Poet’s Society style battle cry.

“Dude you can’t just do that and expect us not to call an ambulance for your crazy ass.” Elijah spoke up from the other side of Tommy. “What the hell is going on?”

Billy kept grinning and looking at Teddy’s confused expression. “Let’s just say that for once, today was just a good day.”

* * *

“Today was fucking awful.” Wanda threw back the shot that the bartender had just placed in front of her. After school had let out for the day and her AP student’s portfolios were finally graded, she, Bruce, Natasha and Clint took an impromptu trip to Yesterday’s. Normally she would have waitedPietro to get through with doing god knows what with Thor in the gym. But after all of the things that had gone down today, she decided to ditch her brother and go with the trio for a couple of rounds at Yesterday’s.

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Natasha said next to her. “You didn’t have to deal with Thomas Shepard and Alec Quenten during the same class period.”

Wanda snorted into the fresh shot the bartender had just poured her. “I think just dealing with Alec Quenten is enough to give anyone a bad year.”

“At least you didn’t have his brother last year and now his little brother this year.” Clint groaned. “Just when I thought things were looking up for me I get both of the Quenten brothers in my class within the same year.”

“I feel really awkward that I can’t say anything about either one of those kids.” Bruce said from the end of the bar.

“Wow, for one of the people who's worked at Xavier’s for the longest, you’re the odd one out today.” Natasha laughed.

“Well at least you’re not the oldest person on the payroll.” Clint followed, clearly making a quip at the expense of Stan.

The trio laughed and went back and forth about various events of last year dealing with Will Quenten and how they all wished that Tony could have gotten away with the ‘Will’s Finally Gone’ party. Wanda however ignored them, staring intently at the line of empty shot glasses before her.

While she had come to Xavier’s to unwind after a day of dealing with hardheaded students and making phone calls to Alec’s parents to schedule a parent-teacher conference (she was not looking forward to next Tuesday), she knew that there was an underlying reason for why her day had gone so poorly in her opinion. It was William Kaplan.

She couldn’t get  him out of her head. The way he’d come up to her after class, so full of confidence yet so nervous at the same time reminded her so much of herself when she was younger. It wasn’t a coincidence that Billy reminded her of her younger days either. If Billy by himself was giving her flashbacks to her circa 1995, she could only imagine how his brother, who she had heard much about from various teachers, could be in comparison.

Wanda smirked to herself. “Funny thing about twins I guess.” she mumbled.

“What about twins?” Wanda’s head shot up and looked over at her friends who were giving her concerned looks. She straightened up in her seat and tried to look casual. “Nothing, just thinking about something stupid Pietro said the other day.”

Natasha and Clint seemed to raise an eyebrow in sync. “You sure about that? Cause you look kinda sad.”

Wanda nodded her head. “Yeah I’m fine. Just thinking about work stuff.”

“Wanna talk about it?” the redhead asked. Wanda knew that there was no getting out of a ‘wanna talk about it’ conversation with Natasha and Bruce. She sucked up her annoyance at their empathy and decided it would be much easier to talk about starting a club than her personal problems.

“You know who Billy Kaplan is,right?” she asked casually.

Natasha nodded her head. “Yeah. He’s in one of my classes. I told him to go and talk to you a while ago about the art club.”

A small snort escaped Wanda. “Funny that you say that ‘cause he came to me after school today asking about clubs.”

Natasha raised one perfect eyebrow. “Huh, only took him two weeks after I told him to do it to actually go and see you about it.” a small smile twitched across her lips as she took a sip from her glass of vodka.

“It wasn’t about art club though,” Wanda continued, “in fact, I’m thinking we might have to forego art club altogether this year.”

Clint and Bruce who were still very much engaged in their own conversation stopped to turn and look at her. Natasha downed the rest of her drink and slammed the glass down onto the bar. “And what made you come to that decision?” she asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, trying to remain casual about the situation. “He came up to me after class and asked if I wanted to help him start a club this year,” she paused for dramatic effect, making sure that her trio of friends were paying attention. “More specifically, a gay pride club, or something close to that nature anyway.”

“That’s a great idea.” Bruce said. “Not trying to knock the importance of art classes or anything, but in my opinion, a pride club would be a hell of a lot more important than an art club.”

“I’m with Strut.” Clint followed. “Don’t call me Strut ever again.” Bruce muttered.

“You said Tommy Sheppard came to you with this idea?” Nat asked. Wanda nodded. “Yeah. Literally less than two hours ago as a matter of fact.”

“Huh, well that’s not surprising. Poor kid took a beating from Will last year.”

A sick feeling formed in the pit of Wanda’s stomach. She couldn’t tell if it was from the cheap alcohol or what Natasha had just said, but either way she was pressed to find out the context of her response.

“What do you mean?”

“Well this shouldn’t be news to you, but the Quenten’s aren’t exactly eager to let anyone wave around a rainbow flag and be happy about it.” she started. “They were in a class together and stuff went far south.”

“Jesus.” Wanda said quietly. “Well now I feel like art isn’t shit compared to the demand for this club.” Her companions nodded in agreement. “A lot of kids are going to need this believe it or not.” Clint spoke up. “In fact I’m surprised no one else has tried to start this kind of club before.”

“He’s got a point.” Bruce followed. “You should bring it up in the faculty meeting tomorrow. I think it’d be a good way to get anyone who can help you to do so.”

“Ha. Thanks for the suggestion, but no thanks.” Wanda said hastily. “Last time I brought up these kind of issues publicly at work, things didn’t go well.”

There was a collective sigh from her co-workers. Wanda raised an eyebrow at them. “You ever try to explain the hundreds of concepts and issues that could be jammed into one club to a bunch of your co-workers during a meeting?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Listen, I know you come from the second roughest household next to a family that runs a Russian ballet company, but you really have to get out of that mindset.” she placed a reassuring hand on Wanda’s shoulder. “There is literally no one I can think of on the staff that wouldn’t be down to have this club at school. If you think that you need to do this, then go ahead and stop worrying so much about what someone else is going to think of you. This is for the greater good of the students and no one can call you out for that.”

Wanda was at a loss for words. She wasn’t expecting such words of encouragement from Natasha, or anyone that she was with to be honest. Sure she wasn’t expecting pitch forks and a stoning, but nothing so inviting and encouraging. She felt more obligated than ever to insure that the premise of Billy’s club would be heard by everyone and to rally support to give students like him and Ann a safe place to be during school hours.

She sighed heavily. “Thanks guys. You might just be the best people I’ve worked with so far.”

“You’re welcome, but it’s not a contest.” Bruce said.

“What’re you saying you’re welcome for? You didn’t just give an Oscar worthy speech that would bring Fury’s stone heart to tears.” Natasha joked.

“I think I should get half of the credit just for deciding to show up.” Clint added in. “I could’ve been at home yelling at my neighbors or whatever, but you guys made me come here.”

Natasha and Wanda rolled their eyes, almost in harmony. “Yeah sure, you can get an A for effort.” the redhead snorted.

“Nothing says ‘motivational Mondays’ like a testosterone filled bar visit.” Wanda joked. Natasha held up her hand for a high five. “Good one.” Wanda followed the gesture and soon everyone was going back and forth about just how much credit Clint should get for even deciding to show up to work that day.

* * *

Four classes, one lunch duty and two exploded sculptures in the kiln later, the students were gone, the art room was clean and it was ten minutes to three forty five. All of this could only mean one thing, it was time for yet another faculty meeting.

Wanda locked the door to her classroom and took her time walking to the library, running thoughts through her head as to how to go about presenting the club to not only Fury, but all of her co-workers. She’d spent the night before running plan after plan through her head, but none of them stuck. She had been so worried that she hadn’t even joined Pietro in the living room for their nightly Jeopardy matches. All of her worrying and planning had come up to nothing worthwhile. “Guess I’ll have to wing it.” she said to herself time and time again throughout the day.

When she reached the library, she joined Pietro at a table near the front. She was pleasantly surprised that he had actually showed up to the meeting considering his track record with attending meetings at their last job.

“Long time no see.” he said when she sat down. “Are the AP kids really keeping you that busy? It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve actually seen you at work outside of lunch duty.”

“I have a free period too you know in case you ever decide to come and visit me.” Wanda rushed.

“I would if you weren’t always off having some coffee break with Banner.” he quipped. Wanda wanted to say something but ignored him. She didn’t have time for his nonsense when she had something much more important to think about.

The library slowly filled to capacity and as it did, Bruce, Pepper, and much to Wanda’s dismay, Tony joined them at the table. The duo gave quick greetings and Wanda blindly acknowledged them. While her brother and Tony went at it over god knows what and why, she continued to filter her mind, trying to calm down enough so when she did have the chance to speak, she’d be mostly ready. She was so busy with this that she nearly jumped out of her skin when Bruce nudged her with his elbow to get her attention.

“You ready for this?” he asked. Wanda nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” she replied.

“Well just remember, no one here is gonna go against you and if they do then Fury will probably handle it.” he reassured her. “That or Tony’ll withhold coffee privileges from whoever dares to do so.”

Wanda appreciated Bruce’s light humor around the situation. She opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment Fury and Maria walked into the library and called for the meeting to start. As usual, the meeting went by at a mind numbingly slow pace. So slow in fact that Wanda almost missed it when Fury made announcement about clubs.

“I don’t want another complaint from Maria about someone trying to start a ‘boycott the Quenten's for all eternity’ club.” he snapped. “I know their awful and none of you want to deal with them, but at least Alec is the youngest.”

“Are you sure we can’t at least start a ‘thank god Alec is the youngest Quenten’ club?” Tony called out beside her. There was a thud under the table followed by Tony muttering a swear under his breath. Clearly Pepper’s work of kicking him in the shin underneath the table.

“Good try, but no.” fury said with a surprising hint of humor in his voice. “But seriously, do any of you have actual ideas for clubs that will be productive for the year?”

Wanda knew it was now or never. Speak now or forever hold your peace and whatever other phrases there were about acting on an impulse. She shot her hand into the air and waited for Fury to acknowledge her. It didn’t take long for him to see her hand.

“You have something to say Ms.Maximoff?” he asked.

Wanda cleared her throat and stood up to speak, guaranteeing that everyone in the library could hear her. “I know that clubs are starting up again and all of my students keep asking about the art club,but I feel that we should go without the art club this year.”

There were a couple of hushed “what’s she thinking” and uneasy shuffle from the other staff.

“What the heck are you doing?” Pietro asked in a harsh whisper. Wanda waved her hand, signalling for him to be quiet. She focused on Fury, who gave no sign of either agreeing or disagreeing with her. “And what’s your reasoning for this?” he asked.

“Well it’s not that I don’t think that the art club here was great or that I couldn’t do just as good of a job as Mrs.Parker did, but a student came to me the other day about an idea for a club.”

“Which would be what exactly?”

Wanda took a deep breath before carrying on slowly with her choice of words. Although Nat, Clint and Bruce had guaranteed that no one on staff were bigoted or homophobic in anyway,she didn’t want to make one of the many mistakes she’d made at her previous job.

“While there are a great deal of clubs here that are pretty fantastic and inclusive of just about every type of student here, I noticed that there isn’t a club for kids in the LGBTQ community.” she stopped and waited for Fury to,or anyone,to say something in protest.

Calm down Wanda. No one here is an angry nun. She reminded herself. “I just think that a club supporting those kids would be a great addition to the school and I’d like to host it.”

Fury nodded his head in agreement. “You’ve got a point Wanda and I support it one hundred percent.”

Wanda was almost taken aback at how smoothly that had gone over. She knew it was ridiculous to think that anyone in the room would publicly protest against her plans while in the presence of the most intimidating man on school grounds, but she hadn’t thought it would have gone over that easily. Even with everyone’s reassurance and speech of encouragement the day before,she had been doubtful,but now,well now she was more than thankful that Billy had come to her with the idea in the first place.

“That’s,that’s great.” she stammered. “That’s amazing.”

“Well this isn’t Catholic school,I don’t know what you were expecting.” Fury said.

“The last time we had someone on staff who was a bigot got the boot by the end of the first semester.” Maria followed.

“This may or may not come as a shock to you Wanda,but I make sure that all of my staff are willing to accept and support everyone who comes in and out of this building on a regular basis. Whether they be a student,teacher or janitor,I don’t take that kind of shit from anyone.” Fury said.

“Langu-fuck.” Tony’s two in one jab at Fury and Steve was cut short by an elbow to the ribs from Pepper.

“Now that that’s cleared up,who else have you gotten to host this club with you?” Fury asked.

“Other host?” she stammered.

“Yes. Each club needs at least two teachers hosting it before it can be approved.”

Wanda turned to Bruce. “You didn’t tell me anything about that.” she whispered. The physics teachers shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been here so long that I forget that not everyone knows the rules.” he said.

“Good job Strut.” Tony said sarcastically.

“Ms.Maximoff,” Fury said curtly, “If no one else will sponsor you then you don’t have a club.”

Wanda swallowed and looked over across the library,hoping that someone would stand with her. She considered yanking Pietro up by his shirt sleeve for the time being but knew that Fury would surely say something about him coaching the track team. Bruce was out of the question because of his AP kids and Tony was too much for her to handle during school hours,she didn’t want to think about having to voluntarily be with him after work and she didn’t know Pepper well enough to suddenly ask her to form a club with her.

While Fury and Bruce had now assured her that no one would go against her idea for ‘moral reasons’, it was apparent that everyone was either too busy with their own work and clubs to join her or didn’t know her well enough to jump to her aid.

Just as she feared that her club would go unsponsored,there was a muffled scraping of chair legs against the thin carpet floor. Wanda turned to see Steve standing a few tables down from her. “I’ll host the club with her.”

Fury turned to Wanda. “You okay with him hosting with you?” he asked.

It was clear that it was either Steve or no one at all,so she didn’t have any other choice. She nodded her head. “That works out fine sir.”

“Well then,that settles it. You two can work out all the technical stuff after the meeting or whenever works best for you two. Just make sure you have it together by next Thursday or the club won’t get put down for the year.” Fury concluded.

“Will do sir.” Steve followed. He turned to Wanda and gave her a quick thumbs up. She flashed a quick smile in reply and sat down in her chair,greatly resisting the urge to run over and hug Steve while thanking him in as many languages she could recall.

The rest of the meeting went by in a blur and in another twenty minutes, they were dismissed for the day. While everyone else was moving quickly to get to the exit,Wanda hung back as the library emptied out,walking over to where Steve was still seated,giving a last few words to James and Sam. She waited a few tables away for the other two men to walk off before approaching Steve.

“Uh, hi, I just wanted to thank you for you know,volunteering to help me out with this club.” she said.

Steve shrugged his shoulders. “Hey,all in a day’s work. Besides,I’ve been working here for ages now,it’s about time I get involved in some clubs.”

Wanda smiled a bit. “I guess that’s true. But honest to God, this does mean a lot to me and it’s going to mean a lot to whatever students decide to join this club. I can’t even begin think of a proper way to thank you.”

Steve stuck out his hand. “My parents always taught me that if you can’t find the words, a handshake works just as well.” He stuck out his hand to her. “Sometimes the simplest things have the greatest meaning to some people.”

She took his hand and shook it firmly. “Simple things like this club for example?” Steve let out a short laugh. “Yeah,I guess you could say that. So,when do you want to start working on this thing. Fury said we need to have it in by next Thursday. Got any free time between now and then?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a free period tomorrow during third block tomorrow and I’ll hang around after school if you need me to.”

“That works just fine.” he said. Wanda nodded. “Alright,see you then.” They both turned to exit the now empty library. Wanda almost couldn’t contain how grateful she was that so far things were falling into place just fine. If things kept up like this for the rest of the semester or at least until next Thursday when clubs started,she felt that the rest of the year would follow along just as smoothly.

 


	7. Many Many Reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has their reasons for loving or hating what they do. Some are stranger than others, but either way, they stick around till the bitter end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit this chapter was hell to finish! made it extra long and added in some new characters to make up for the fact that i haven't updated since october. i will try to add another chapter before i go back for my second semester in january. on a happier note: i've got three fics lined up to post between christmas and new year's eve! enjoy this chapter and stay tuned to see what dumb shenanigans the teachers and students find themselves in next!

Jane paced impatiently in the foyer. School had been in session for almost a month now yet the morning routine with the girls was always the same. Wake up at five, make some form of breakfast for herself and get ready for the day before going to wake the girls up at six. Thor would usually be getting ready to leave for work around the time the girls were getting dressed, leaving Jane to pack lunches, feed the girls, and suffer through whatever last minute outfit changes needed to be made. Usually Jane would help the girls through whatever indecisiveness would come about with their outfits, but today the twins were determined to dress themselves which left Jane at the foot of the staircase waiting for her daughters to come back down.

“Girls, I still have to get you to school on time!” Jane called up the staircase. “We’re leaving in five minutes and I don’t care if you’re in pajamas when we go!” She heard the girls giggling upstairs, probably at the fact that one of them was now considering going to school in their teddy bear footie pajamas.

It wasn’t that Jane was concerned with getting the girls to school on time, it was only seven twenty and they wouldn’t be marked tardy until after seven forty-five. She was more concerned about getting to work on time seeing as she worked twenty minutes across town and she had an eight o’clock physics lecture to give and she was not one to keep her students waiting.

"Kristin and Ingrid Odinson don’t make me come up there!” Jane shouted.

“We’re almost done!” the twins tiny voices replied in unison.

“You’re going to be late!”

“We’re coming!” The sound of footsteps hurried down the hall and as the twins finally came into sight up on the second floor landing, Jane was one part amazed and one part perplexed at the ensemble that the girls had managed to throw together.

Both Ingrid and Kristin were wearing something that looked like a design for some Celtic Disney princess. They were clad in plaid skirts with the brightest, frilliest socks that they could find. Thankfully their plain white t-shirts were a lot less ostentatious compared to the rest of their wardrobe and both of their outfits were complete with those plastic tiaras they had gotten from a friend’s birthday party over the summer.

Jane was so tempted to risk being late and telling the girls to go back to their rooms to change but knew that that would only be met with whines and pouty faces that she would succumb to in an instant.

“Do you like our outfits?” Ingrid asked when she bounded down the last steps and into the foyer.

“Yes, I think you two did a very good job.” Jane said, “But we have to hurry now or else you’re going to be late for school.” She grabbed her work bag off the floor and yanked the front door open,ushering the girls out in a hurry.

Jane was never one to break speed limits, but she drove at a dangerous forty-five miles per hours in a forty limit zone. Her speed demon driving got her and the girls to their elementary school just at seven forty. She pulled into the parking lot and hurried the girls out of the car. Due to the rules of the school, Jane had to escort the girls to their classroom and sign them in. She and the girls nearly sprinted across the parking lot and down the emptying hallways and past classrooms that were filled with other children.

Just as the tardy bell was about to ring at seven forty-four, the Foster family trio came to a screeching halt in front of Mr.Quill’s classroom. The girl’s teacher and their classmates made no effort to pretend that they weren’t ogling at them as they came through the door. Jane knew the kids were probably staring because of Ingrid and Kristin’s Disney meets bagpipe player outfits. Their teacher,on the other hand, followed Jane with his gaze as she helped the girls put their things into their cubbies and get settled in with their classmates that were doing early morning coloring pages that had reviews shapes,letters and numbers.

“You two behave yourselves today,okay.”

The twins nodded their heads. “Only if no one gives us a reason to act bad.” Ingrid whispered in her mother’s ear.

“Yeah, like last Tuesday with Jonas.” Kristin followed.

“What happened last Tuesday with Jonas?” Jane asked. The girls giggled and went back to tracing their letters in crayons. Jane couldn’t help but smile at her daughter’s guile. She kissed them both on the forehead before standing up and walking over to Mr.Quill to sign them in.

“Seems like you’ve had a busy morning already and it’s not even eight o’clock yet.” the younger man smirked, handing her the clipboard with the sign in sheet. “I think I can sneak you some coffee from the teacher lounge if you really need it.”

Jane let out a short laugh. “Thanks but no thanks. I really need to get going because I am super late.” She passed the clipboard back to him.

“Totally respectable choice. But before you go, you should probably know that your shirt is on inside out.”

Jane looked down at her blouse and sure enough the seams inside her shirt were clear as day. “Oh fuck.” Jane muttered under her breath.

“Hey, I’ve got kids in here.” Mr.Quill joked.

Jane kept her head down, trying to hide the fact that she was blushing from embarrassment. “Okay, well, have a nice day. Call me if my girls act up or anything at all. Yeah.” she turned on her heels and paced out the room quickly.

The walk back to the parking lot was a short one considering that Jane had practically ran down the halls. Once back in her car, she changed her shirt to the right side, praying that that one mom walking inside with her son didn’t see her with no shirt on. With one last look back at the school and a silent plea that the girls would behave themselves today, she started the car and drove out of the parking lot.

* * *

The room had fallen into chaos already and it wasn’t even eight-fifteen. Note to self, get sugary breakfast foods banned from existence. Mr.Quill thought bitterly. The kindergartners were loud and rowdy, even more so than they usually were. He had hoped that coloring pages would be enough to ease them back into the swing of school after the weekend, but the state that his classroom was in right now showed the complete opposite.

“Jonas! Get those crayons out of your ears!” he shouted, rushing over to the table where the boy was sitting. He knelt down next to the boy, holding his head steady and pulled the crayons out. Peter was never one to feel sorry for inanimate objects, but the pink and green crayons were now and unfortunate shade of brown from the short trip in Jonas’ ear canal.

“What gave you the bright idea to stick crayons in your ears?” he asked the boy.

“Lucy said that her brother told her that crayons are brain food.” Jonas replied, sounding oh so sure of himself. Peter looked to the adjourning table to Lucy Harris. It’s not that Lucy was a bad kid, she just had a bad outlet for her creative ideas (i.e. that time she almost stuck her finger in the electric pencil sharpener to see if it would sharpen her nails into cat claws).

“Lucy, please don’t encourage your classmates to stick small objects into their ears.” Peter chided.

“But Henry said that it works.” Lucy piped up. “He knows what he’s talking about, he’s in the third grade.” Ah yes, Henry Harris, Lucky’s older brother that Peter had had the wonderful pleasure of teaching three years prior. Peter didn’t necessarily dislike Henry, but he didn’t miss the way he’d dive bomb off the table every time his table won a round of spelling bee.

Peter sighed. All he had wanted was for this morning to go smoothly, but he should have known better his students would have come in especially riled up after the weekend. “This calls for desperate measures.” He rose and walked away from the working area to his desk towards the back of the classroom. He opened up the top drawer and took out his iPod, hooked it up to the speaker system and watched and waited as the opening to King of Carrot Flowers started. The kids turned around to face him, confused looks plastered across their faces. He ducked down under his desk and rose holding his acoustic guitar. Almost simultaneously, everyone’s jaw dropped.  

“Who wants to do a round of sing along?” he called out. The class went wild.

“Can we sing Mambo Number Five?”

“No no! We have to sing Hakuna Matata!”

“My mommy let’s me listen to Bruno Mars. Can we sing one of his songs?” The class was filled with everyone’s suggestions for what song they wanted to sing. Peter pressed pause on his iPod, subtracting one of the many sources of noise. A hush fell over the classroom as the music ceased.

“While those are all fantastic song selections, we’re gonna sing one of my favorite songs.” he said.

“Is it the song that was just playing about vegetables?” Kristin Odinson piped up.

“No, not that one. We’re gonna play an even better song. But this time, I’m gonna play it myself.”

“Wait, so why’d you play that song about vegetables?” Kristin asked.

“Oh that was just to get your attention for a couple of seconds.” He smiled. “Just gimme a moment here.” He started to tune his guitar, making sure everything sounded right before playing the opening chords to the song he’d picked out.

“Any of you ever stayed in a hotel?” he asked his students. A few of them started to chatter excitedly, ready to share whatever stories they had. “By a show of hands,” Peter interrupted before he lost control of them again, “How many of you stayed in a hotel before?” This time, there was a much more contained response as a couple of kids raised their hands.

“Nice. Well this song is about a hotel. A hotel in California called Hotel California.”

“That’s a lazy name for a hotel.” a boy in overalls spoke up.

“That’s true enough. But it’s a good song.” He played through the first chords again before moving from behind the desk, slowly parading around the classroom as he sang. “On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair. Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air.”

“I know this song!” Jonas said excitedly, “My mommy plays it all the time!”

“You wanna help me sing the chorus?” Peter asked him, still playing through the first verse.

Jonas blushed and averted his eyes from him.

“Ah come on, don’t be like that.” Peter said. “Think of it like a Disney movie. You’re singing your favorite song in the movie and everyone just follows along.”

“So like a musical?” the boy asked.

“Yeah kinda like a musical.”

Jonas still shook his head. “I don’t think I can do it.”

Peter stopped playing and turned to the rest of his class. “Okay then I’ll pick another song. Anyone know the song Call Me Maybe?” The class erupted with raised hands and shouts of the lyrics. He smiled at his student’s excitement. It was moments like these that made him glad he’d chose teaching over the dozen of professions that he’d gone through throughout the years. Well, the kids were only one of the reasons he loved his job so much….

“Alright, alright! Everyone get in a line starting right here.” he pointed at an empty chair at a table in front of him. The kids scuttled across the room from their tables and stood in front of him in the most orderly fashion he’d seen them in so far this year. Once everyone was corralled in a line, Peter said no more and strummed out the beginning of the song.

“I threw a wish in the well. Don’t ask me, I’ll never tell. I looked to you as I fell.”

“And now you’re in my way!” his class followed in perfect harmony.

Peter smiled and continued to play, walking around the classroom as he did so. His students rose from their seats and started to follow him around the room in a conga-line fashion, continuing to sing as they did so.

“Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But here’s my number,”

“So call me maybe!” his students finished the line.

Just as Peter was about to kick off the second verse, there was a knock at the door. “Ruby, keep the song going while I get the door!” he instructed one of his classroom helpers (a title that many students coveted, but few had). When Ruby had rallied the classroom together to continue the next verse, he tried his best to keep playing the song in his guitar as he answered the door. He peeped through the blinds on the door’s window and saw a sight for sore eyes, Ms.G. Ms.G was of course Gamora. Her last name proved to be too difficult for students to pronounce so she settled on the nickname at the end of her first year.

Peter smiled to himself and opened the door best he could with a guitar in his hands. “So what brings you out of the bat cave?” he asked. Everyone jokingly called the school’s gymnasium where Gamora reigned supreme ‘the bat cave’ because of how far off it was in the school compared to everything else. She never appreciated the nickname usually because it usually resulted in Batman decorations in the gym every Halloween.

Peter’s response elicited no change in expression from Gamora. She still stood there looking far too agitated and pissed off this early in the morning.

He stopped playing, stepped over the threshold to his classroom, and closed the door behind him. He and Gamora hadn’t gotten to know each other that well during Peter’s first year last year, but he knew enough about her from coworkers to know that if she ever showed up to your door unexpectedly and looking like death, it wasn’t to join your classroom’s sing along.

“Is everything alright?” he asked, his tone shifting.

“Ronan needs to see you.” was all she said.

“Oh fuck.” he sighed.

Ronan was the closest Peter had seen anyone be to being a real life Miss Trunchbull. When he’d first started working at Brennen Elementary last year, he couldn’t believe such a tough, no-nonsense, buzz kill was the principle of an elementary school, hell, some of the parents that came in for conferences thought Peter was the principle at the start of last year from the way students flocked to him but walked a mile to avoid crossing paths with Ronan.

“What is it this time?”

“It’s beyond me. Ronan never tells me anything.”

Peter muttered a swear under his breath. First it was steaming hot coffee spilled on his crotch, a class of rowdy little kids, a crayon in the ear, and now his way-too-scary-to-be-around-kids-under-ten boss needing him for whatever god forsaken reason.

“He doesn’t need to see me now, does he?”

“He told me that he needed you ‘as soon as fucking possible’ and those are his words, not mine.” Gamora said.

Peter groaned and rolled his eyes. Of the many things he couldn’t stand about Ronan, the one thing that always managed to drive him up a wall was how fucking cryptic he was all the time. Ask to borrow a pen, and he’ll give you a lecture on the butterfly effect, try to get a copy of the testing schedule, he’d send you every other email except the schedule. No, cryptic wasn’t the right word, there were four words that Peter used to describe Ronan: pain in the ass.

“Whatever. Can you watch my class while I’m gone?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m here for, besides, I have them next period anyways so this is a win for both of us.” Gamora replied.

Peter snorted. “Not a win for the poor asshole that has to go deal with Ronan.”

Gamora cut her eyes at him, clearly not admiring his comment. He threw up his hands and started to back away from her. “Sorry. What I should’ve said was: not a win for the poor asshole that has to deal with your stepdad. But ya know, same difference.”

“You can also be the poor asshole who’s out of a job.” Gamora retorted. She stepped towards the classroom door and stepped inside before Peter had time to formulate a response.

He knew he’d crossed the line in the very delicate relationship that he and Gamora had, and it was only a month into the school year. “Way to fucking go Quill,” he said to himself. “Now you gotta deal with Ronan and angry Gamora.” He gave one last look at his classroom door, hoping the kids wouldn’t get too out of hand around Ms.G, and started off down the hallway towards the front end of the school.

When he finally reached the front office, Peter wasted no time barging through the doors, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible and at least make it back to his class before Gamora escorted them to the gym in the next twenty minutes.

The doors to Ronan’s office had unfortunately become a familiar sight to him over the past four years he’d been at Brennen. Not including trips to take rowdy kids to the office for a phone call home, Peter had been in this office more times than he could count on his fingers and toes combined.

“Let’s get this over with.” He whispered. He knocked on the door and was met with a quick response from Ronan on the other side. “Come in.” the principal replied his deep brooding voice.

Peter entered the office (which was much more impressive compared to the other administrative staff’s but it wasn’t his place say anything on the matter) to see Ronan as stern and threatening as usual. Despite the fact that Peter was used to dealing with Ronan and the fact that Ronan probably wanted to gut him half of the time, that still didn’t keep him from feeling intimidated by him. No wonder the kids walked miles around him during recess.

“You wanted me?” Peter started.

Ronan gestured to the lone desk chair in front of him. “Sit.”

Peter opened his mouth to say something, but knew it would be futile. He crossed the room and sat across the desk from Ronan. “So, like I was saying earlier,” he continued once he was seated, “Gamora said you needed me for something.”

“You know what you’re here for.”

Peter raised an eyebrow in confusion. It was only four weeks into the school year, surely he hadn’t fucked up already (or at least not in anyway that he thought would affect his career anyway). He racked his mind of all the major things he’d done so far this year. There had been that one kid in his class who threw up within the first fifteen minutes of class on the first day, but he doubted that was what this was about. Or maybe it was because of that girl who had showed up to the faculty meeting last week cause she didn’t believe him when he had told her that he was a teacher. Whatever it was, Peter was praying that it would only result in a minimal punishment this time around.

“Well I’m having a bit of a hard time figuring that out, so can you just tell me what I’m here for?” he said.

Ronan’s expression darkened, clearly not appreciating Peter’s wit. He sighed and continued on with whatever he’d dragged Peter in here for. “Seeing how our jobs have a very thin line between professional and personal, and since you can’t seem to tell the difference, I’m going to tell you this one time and one time only.”

God fucking dammit. Peter knew exactly what this was about. Good news about knowing what he was in hot water for: he couldn’t get fired for it. Bad news: that wouldn’t stop Ronan from making his life hell for the next nine months, or even worse, Gamora.

“Listen, Ronan,” Peter interrupted. “I know where this is going and I just wanted you to know, I’ve got this under control.” he said confidently.

“The way you had that kid throwing up on the first day under control?”

“Hey, that was a totally uncalled for situation. This is different. Gamora and I are both adults and we can handle our own business without daddy stepping into the picture.”

Ronan’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?” He didn’t sound angry, but confused.

Peter realized that what he said might have come out the wrong way. This was Ronan after all, you had to talk to him like an authority or pay the ultimate price of getting the side eye for a good six weeks every time he saw you in the hallways.

“Ronan, listen, I didn’t mean it like that. What I’m trying to say is that if things fall apart between me and Gamora, you won’t have to worry. Like I said, we’re both responsible adults that can handle our own personal issues.”

A wide range of emotions seemed to flash across Ronan’s face, ranging from confusion, anger, and pure disgust. “Are you implying that you and Gamora are dating?” he asked.

All of the blood seemed to drain out of Peter’s face. He’d really fucked up now. “Is that not what you were talking about?”

“I was going to ask you to stop flirting with the single moms during open house and parent teacher conferences!” Ronan shouted, almost as if forgetting his moment of bamboozlement just a few seconds beforehand.

“Oh. Uh...Sorry?”

“Sorry?!” Ronan rose from his desk chair, towering over Peter behind his desk. “Sorry doesn’t cut how unprofessional you act around your co-workers!” Ronan shouted. “You’re disrespectful, arrogant, and now you tell me you’ve been having sex with my daughter for who knows how long and all you have to say is sorry?”

“First off,” Peter spoke up “Gamora is your stepdaughter. Secondly, I never said that we were having sex.”

Ronan’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re lucky I can’t fire you over this because if I could, you’d be on your ass in the parking lot right now.”

“I’m gonna take that as my invitation to leave.” Peter said quickly. He got up from his chair and half walked, half ran out the door. He heard Ronan shout something behind him but didn’t dare turn around.

Peter had a habit of looking at all situations two ways, the good and the bad. The good in this situation was that he wasn’t fired and would be able to at pay rent at least until his lease was up. The bad news was that now he had to deal with Ronan’s wrath for the next nine months.

“And thus begins another exciting year at Brennen Elementary.” Peter muttered to himself as he passed through the empty halls.

* * *

 

 

Fourth period was always a riot. Pietro never knew if it was the mixture of multiple grade levels in one classroom, the fact that this was the last class of the day, or that he was stressed enough to have a heart attack after lunch duty, but either way, fourth period always sucked.

“Who knew a SAT practice class could drive a man insane.” He had stepped out of the class for a couple of minutes to answer a phone call from Maria down in the main office and had ended up complaining about his class.

“You should try Sam’s job for a day and see who’s got the worst end of the deal.” Maria said on the other end. “Just get back to your class before they start, what was it you said?”

Pietro sighed, regretting that he’d even let the words slip out earlier. “Before they raise Satan with the practice books.” He still didn’t doubt that his students would try it. Mckenzie Graham and her clique of friends were a bit too obsessed with American Horror Story for his comfort.

“Yeah, that.” Maria half snorted, half laughed on the other end. “If that does happen, call Ororo. I swear she’s magic from the way her hair stays perfect all the time.”

“Thanks for the tip Maria.”

“Always here to help Speedy Bastard.” the line went dead.

He sighed, wishing that he could switch places with Maria in the front office. Sure there was paperwork for days and Fury’s shoot first, questions later attitude to deal with, but at least there was a steady supplies of pastries and coffee in the mailroom.

From the other side of the door, he could hear his students voices rising with each moment that he was gone. “They’re just kids Pietro.” he told himself. “They just hate this class as and wanna go home as much as you do.” he took a deep breath and opened the door, releasing the cacophony of his classroom out into the hallway. He quickly stepped inside dragging the phone cord and pulling the door shut behind him. His student’s conversations came to a screeching halt as the took note of his presence in the room.

Based on how quickly his students stopped talking and how they all seemed to watch him as he walked back across the classroom to the whiteboard, it was clear that they had been up to no good in the few minutes that he had been on the phone with Maria.

“You know you guys’ silence doesn’t do much to help my suspicions, right?” he said.

No one said a word. A few kids did the ‘cough to cover up the awkward silence’ cliche. It was clear that no one was going to pipe up and based on the look of the room, no real damage had been done.

Pietro shrugged his shoulders. “Alright then. So since none of you seem to have done anything wrong, you obviously must’ve spent the last few minutes working on your practice essays.” That resulted in a unanimous groan from all of the students.

“Oh come on, it’s only for another thirty minutes. At least you guys don’t have to sit here for another three hours and grade your work after class is up.” Pietro said.

“The way you and Mr.Barton talk about this job make it seem like you don’t even want to be here.” one kid piped up. “Like, why do y’all stay here if you hate it so much?”

Pietro had to fight the urge to roll his eyes at that comment. Why did all students think that a few complaints here and there equates to hating the entire job?

“No one here hates their job.” Pietro replied.

“Yeah, sure.”

“No, I’m serious. You have to have a certain passion for this type of work to deal with kids that aren’t your own for eight hours a day, five days out of the week, and one hundred eighty days a year. Sometimes more if we get snowstorms.”

None of his students seemed to be paying attention to his speech anymore. Typical. He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Just get back to work. I want all of your work turned in at the end of class, regardless if you finished it or not.”  

He walked back across the room to his desk and watched his class work silently for a few minutes. Once he was positive that no devil worshiping had commenced while he had been outside, he logged into his computer and did what every responsible teacher did during their class time: scroll through endless Buzzfeed articles.

Not only was fourth period his least favorite class, it was also his least productive. After being up since five in the morning, coaching a group of sweaty freshmen first thing in the morning, teaching yet another group of bored kids in his first SAT practice class of the day, helping Thor during his free period, and lunch duty, Pietro was tuckered out by the time his last class rolled around. He was really regretting pissing off the one teacher in the school with a decent coffee machine, a shot of espresso was something he desperately needed right now.

Jesus, you sound like one of your students. He exited out of the quiz he was taking (‘Which Knowles Sister Are You?’) and opened up his email, deciding that he should at least try to set an example for his students, but mostly for himself, and to keep Wanda from nagging at him about not getting work done.

Everything was standard. The usual message from Maria telling everyone to try their hardest to not fuck up today (he still wasn’t sure if she actually sent that to the entire staff or just him), the back and forth from Tony and the reply all emails he always sent out in the middle of the day for no reason. Probably out of boredom. Ugh, trying to be a productive adult wasn’t as fun as everyone made it seem back in grad school. He exited out of his email stared at the minutes tick away on the tiny pixelated clock on his desktop screen. Still another twenty minutes to spare, great.

His eyes darted back to the phone on the wall. He had an urge to give Maria another call, just out of boredom. Hell, she might appreciate him calling given the amount of complaining she did about how mind numbingly boring the front office became during the last part of the day. All that aside though, he genuinely liked talking to Maria. She was a nice woman who despite him being nothing but a bit of a dick to her other co-workers for the first couple of days of work, she still treated him like she treated anyone else at Xavier’s. Well, everyone except Tony, she went out of her way to be an extra sarcastic slushie drinker around him.

No, now was not the time to be fantasising about how conversations with certain short-haired co-workers could go. Even if he were to call her, Pietro was pretty sure that stepping out for a second time would trigger another possible devil worshiping circle in the last fifteen minutes of class. Besides, he was going to see her at the staff’s weekly get together at Yesterday’s in another hour and a half. But more importantly, his master plan was finally going to be put into action.

At long last, the clock hand hit three o’five, Pietro rallied his students together and collected their work and when the final bell rang, he had to stand clear out of the doorway to avoid being trampled to death by teenagers.

Once the room cleared out in a record setting two minutes, Pietro set himself to work on cleaning up the room. He gathered up the practice books that were always left out despite the fact that Pietro had written on the board in the brightest Expo marker he could find to always put them back on the shelf after class. Any loose papers were tossed in his desk drawer to sort through later and he reminded himself to drag the recycling bin with him down to the cafeteria before locking up for the day.

He always made it his duty to make his room as clean as possible at the end of the day because he had learned the hard way about how everyone felt towards Stan. At the time he hadn’t known that the old man was the sole full time janitor for the entire school and for the first two weeks of school, he wouldn’t do much other than put the books back on the shelf and take out the recycling. it only took one visit from his classroom neighbor, Steve, and one fifteen minute scolding for him to get his act together.

Twenty minutes later and his classroom was as neat and tidy as it had been that morning before his first SAT practice class came through. He gathered his things and the recycling and headed out of his classroom.

“First stop, Wanda’s room.” he said to himself as he locked the classroom door.

“I thought your first stop was always the front office.”

Pietro let out a little scream at the sudden comment. He looked up from his keys to see Steve standing in his doorway seven feet down. Pietro let out a sigh, trying to get his breathing back down from the sudden scare. “You scared the shit out of me.” he said.

“Sorry about that.” Steve apologized. “Just wanted to start up a conversation.”

“Yeah, you did that and nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“My hands are equipped with defibrillators.” Steve laughed.

Pietro raised his eyebrows. This had to be some inside joke among the veteran staff here that he was missing, or Steve had finally gone insane from the amount of caffeine he drinks in a day.

Steve clearly caught onto his confusion. “It’s a joke from this movie Peggy and I were,” Steve shook his head. “Nevermind. But anyway, what’s making you change up your usual afternoon plans today?”

“Wanda’s got some parent teacher conference with that one kid everyone hates and I wanna remind her to not tear off anyone’s heads.” Pietro started.

“Alec Quenten?”

Pietro nodded. “That and I need the car keys before I go to Yesterday’s.”

“You two should really invest in separate cars.”

“Oh no, we have separate cars, it’s just that my car is impounded at the moment.”

“Bad car accident?” Steve asked.

“Ha. I wish. I’ve got a shit ton of speeding tickets I need to pay off first.” Pietro laughed.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me coming from a guy whose nickname around here is ‘Speedy Bastard’. Well,l I won’t keep you stranded here for too long. See you tomorrow Pietro.” Steve locked his door quickly and turned to start off down the hall. Pietro raised another eyebrow. While he hadn’t known Steve to be a heavy drinker, he was a regular at the staff get togethers at Yesterday’s, something was up.

“You aren’t coming to Yesterday’s this week?” he called behind him. Steve turned back around to face him.

“Prior engagement.” he said. “I’ve got some stuff to do with Peggy this evening and I don’t wanna be late.”

Pietro opened his mouth to say something else, but Steve was down the hall and around the corner too fast for him to formulate a response. He shrugged it off and continued his journey downstairs. If he really wanted to know what was up with Steve, all he’d have to do was ask Bucky. Those two were practically joined at the hip and if anyone at this gossip filled school knew what was up with Steve, it would be Mr.Barnes.

Downstairs, there was a gathering of the usual teachers and staff in Bruce’s room trying to put in their guesses on how he’d arranged the bookshelf this year. So far the top guess was word count from highest to lowest which honestly made no sense because all of the Game of Thrones books were placed behind the Chronicles of Narnia series.

“Okay but what if it’s the number of pages of all the books combined from least to greatest?” he heard Darcy’s tell tale high pitched voice ask.

“For the last time, that’s not the answer, and even if it was, you’re not a student.” Bruce followed. Pietro couldn’t help but admire the doctor’s patience. Lord knows that if it were him he would have pushed everyone into a pool by now.

The door to Wanda’s room was wide open and he could see her at her desk talking on the phone, looking rather agitated.

“Yes, it’s at four-thirty….No no, we’ll be meeting in Mr.Wilson’s office.” She said into the receiver. Pietro knocked on the doorframe to get his sister’s attention. She looked up, gave him a half hearted wave and went back to her conversation.

“Mrs.Quenten, this isn’t about your son’s grades, this is about his behavior. He caused a student of mine to break down into tears over some very hurtful comments….No, I mentioned all of this in the email I sent you last week and when I called you the day it happened.”

Pietro walked across the room and took a seat at one of the cleaner work tables. Amazing how she constantly got at him about his messes but she had been behind on cleaning her room ever since she started hosting the pride club. He sat and listened to the mixture of Wanda’s conversation with Alec’s mom and Darcy’s wild card guesses at cracking the bookshelf mystery.

Wanda made a face that looked like she was trying to pass a kidney stone and dropped her head down onto her desk with a thud. “No, I’m his art teacher, Ms.Maximoff. You’re thinking of the student resources officer Ms.Hill. No, I’m positive, this is my first year at Xavier’s….Alright, I hope to see you and your husband at four-thirty…Goodbye.” she hung up the phone and let out loud groan. “Jesus Christ those are some incompetent people.”

She looked over at Pietro. “What brings you here? Usually you’re chatting it up with Maria.” “Can’t a brother come say hello after a long day of not seeing his sister?” he asked  sarcastically.

Wanda’s expression didn’t falter. “We live together and shared the same uterus for nine months.”

“When you say it like that it makes it sound gross.” he joked.

Wanda rolled her eyes. “What do you want Pietro? Unlike you, I have to get some work done before dealing with the worst family ever and I don’t get a happy hour to drink my sorrows away.

“Relax Shakespeare, I just need the car keys for my master plan.” he said. That solicited another eye roll. “Is it too late to talk you out of this?”

“Yup. You should know me better at this point.”

Wanda didn’t reply. She opened up her desk drawer, grabbed the keys and threw them across the room to him. He missed, as usual. His sport was track and field, not baseball and football.

“Smooth move Quicksilver.” Wanda said flatly.

“I’m gonna take your tone as a sign that I should leave.” Pietro said as he stooped over to pick the keys up off the floor.

“Please do. Because if I don’t get at least a good hour to myself befor this conference, I might rip someone’s head off.”

Pietro snorted. “What?” Wanda asked.

“It’s funny you say that cause that’s exactly what I told Steve you were gonna do when I saw him a few minutes ago.”

Wanda balled her hands into fists and closed her eyes, exhaling deeply through her nose. “You are so lucky that I can’t kill you.”

“Why? Cause I pay half of the rent?”

“No, because family members are the first people the cops go to when someone goes missing.”

Pietro nodded. “I’ll drop the keys back off when I’m done.”

“You fucking better.” Pietro walked out of the classroom and moved quickly to get to the staff parking lot. It was already three-thirty and everyone usually started to leave for Yesterday’s around three-forty-five, and he still needed to find someone to take him and his master plan to the bar.

Outside it was still unusually hot to say that they were now a few days into September. Maybe it was the fact that he was used to the weather being much cooler this time of year back in Italy or the fact that global warming was alive and well. Either way, it was too hot in his opinion. He hit the lock button on the keys and heard the pathetic beep from Wanda’s car across the lot signalling that it had been unlocked. Pietro picked up his pace and popped the trunk of the car, reached in and pulled out two super soaker water guns, a tub of whipped cream that he really should’ve stuck in the fridge in the teacher’s lounge this morning, and a towel. This had to be the dumbest plan he’d come up with in a long time, but it was now or never to get back on Clint and Peter’s good side.

He stashed the items into the Whole Foods bag that was always in the trunk of Wanda’s car and headed back inside to drop off the keys and find a ride. The first stop was easy, he slid the keys under Wanda’s now closed door and knocked three time to make sure she’d see them and headed towards the main office. In all honesty, he probably had a better shot of getting a ride from Tony but something told him that trying to convince him to let him into his Audi with a tub of melted whipped cream wouldn’t work out, so Maria it was.

He passed the god awful phoenix tile pattern and entered the office. Maria was in her usual spot at the desk, tidying up her work area before heading out to happy hour with the rest of the staff.

“Ororo said that she hasn’t seen you all day, so I’m assuming no devil worshiping took place today.” she started.

“Maybe she said a prayer from her room and it blessed me all throughout fourth period.”

Maria laughed at that. “I wouldn’t doubt it. I think she’s been looking out for you ever since you dunked Clint in the pool.”

Don’t forget what brought you here Speedy Bastard. Pietro raised up the bag in his hand. “I need your help with something.” he said.

Maria’s gaze dropped down to the bag and she sighed. “This is another prank you and Stark have worked up, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Only one part of that statement is true.” he laughed uneasily. “I’m going to pull a prank on myself to get back at Clint and Peter for the party at Tony’s place.”

Maria opened and closed her mouth, looking completely unsure as to what to say next. After a moment’s pause, she threw up her hands. “Sure, whatever, I’m in. Anything to get back at Stark for his idiot ideas. Just please tell me that I don’t have to get dunked into a pool or something stupid like that.”

“No. I just need a ride to Yesterday’s and a trip to CVS cause I need to buy some beers.”

“You do realize that we’re going to a bar in like ten minutes, right?”

“Yeah, but I need to have these super soakers loaded up before we get there.”

“I don’t even want to know what the super soakers are for.” she said. Maria reached down into her purse and grabbed her car keys. “Come on Speedy Bastard. If you want this to work you gotta beat the crowd there.”

* * *

Yesterday’s on a Wednesday afternoon was usually an empty place between the months of June to August. But the moment the schools opened back up after the summer, the crowd from Xavier’s would be the sole occupants of the dive bar.

Pietro was still trying to get used to the idea of social drinking after work. True, he’d done plenty of drinking at his own apartment back at his old job, but be apart of the crowd for once and actually having a good time with co-workers was something he had yet to get adjusted to. That said, he was probably about to ruin his Wednesday afternoon trips to drink shitty beer and whiskey with his newfound friends. With his super soakers filled to capacity with the cheapest beer he could find (this was the only time he’d been glad to have to buy PBR). He ditched the container of whipped cream and he and Maria stood outside of her car in the farthest corner of the parking lot and began to empty the contents of the beer cans into the guns.

“You know, we’re probably going to be banned from Yesterday’s and any other social events for the rest of the year, right?” Maria asked.

“Probably. But at least we’ll have a fuck ton of beer left over after this to drink during faculty meetings.”

“Pietro, this is the beer of shitty frat boys and underaged college kids sneaking into a bar like this,” she pointed ahead of her at Yesterday’s. “Yet somehow, I’m one hundred percent sure everyone would take it just for something to do during those god forsaken meetings.” She looked down at the can in her hand and took a sip. Her face contorted and she turned to spit it out. “On the other hand, no one’s gonna like this. Tastes like cat piss. Don’t ask why I know what cat piss tastes like.”

Pietro laughed and shook his head. By far, this had to be the strangest conversation he’d had with Maria in the short month that he’d known her. But to be fair, she was helping him fill up super soakers with beer in the backlot of a dive bar. Once the super soakers were filled to capacity, they loaded the rest of the beers back into Maria’s car and headed towards the entrance of the bar, each of them toting a water gun over their shoulder.

Inside, the bar was already filled with the regular happy hour crowd: Tony, Pepper, Bruce, Darcy, Natasha, the group of young teachers that included Peter and two others that he hadn’t gotten to know and of course, Clint. There were a few other stragglers, but none that Pietro usually found himself talking to during work hours or at Yesterday’s.

No one seemed to notice he and Maria enter the bar, they were all absorbed into some loud and no doubt exaggerated story that Tony was telling.

“So then, this is the best part, Pepper goes up to her and says,” Tony cleared his throat and began speaking in a high pitched breathy voice, doing a poor imitation of the libraian seated next to him. “I do any and everything Mr.Stark needs, including taking out the trash.”

“You make me sound like such a bitch when you say it like that.” Pepper said.

“Pics or it didn’t happen.” Clint jeered.

“There’s your guy.” Maria said pointing at Clint with her water gun. “Shall I do the honors or do you wanna handle this yourself.” she asked.

Pietro puffed out his chest in a dramatic fashion. “This is my revenge prank, I gotta do this on my own.” He grabbed the second super soaker from Maria and started towards the bar where his friends were seated. The first person to take notice of him and Maria was Darcy.

She snorted into her shot glass when she saw the massive water guns thrown over Pietro’s shoulders. “This is either a recipe for disaster or my next post on Tumblr.”

Everyone else in attendance turned to face them and there was a line of raised eyebrows. “Oh this can’t be good.” Natasha muttered.

Peter and Clint looked the most concerned, which was reasonable given the last time he’d really talked to either of them was during Tony’s party, and everyone remembered how well that had gone. Pietro held out a super soaker to both of them. The pair looked at the guns, to each other, and then to Pietro. “What’d you and Stark have planned now?” Clint asked.

“Nothing, this is all me.” Pietro answered. He nudged the super soakers towards them again. “Consider it a very watered down version of what I did to the both of you. A very shitty and postponed ‘Sorry for tossing you into a pool.’”

Peter was the first to grab a super soaker. He took it and opened up the nozzle where he and Maria had emptied beers into. “Oh god, this smells like a frat house bathroom. What the hell did you fill this thing with?”

“PBR, cause aren’t we all broke teachers looking to buy cheap alcohol?” Pietro exclaimed.

“Everyone except Stark-bucks.” Clint muttered.  

Tony opened his mouth to say something, but was cut short by a missile strength shot of PBR being shot in his face. Peter laughed so hard he nearly fell off his bar stool. “That’s for giving this asshole the bright idea to shove me into a pool!” he shouted. “And you,” he turned towards Pietro and shot him straight between the eyes. “That’s for actually following up that asshole!”

“Fair enough.” Pietro laughed, wiping the beer from his forehead.

Peter nudged Clint in the arm with his super soaker. “C’mon Barton, this is no trip in a pool but it’s still funny.”

Clint sighed and grabbed the remaining super soaker. “I’m not one for petty revenge but at least I get to do this.” he aimed his super soaker down and shot Pietro point blank in the crotch. Pietro doubled over, grabbing at the bar for support.

“Nevermind, I can see why Stark is always looking for shitty ways to get back at people.” Clint laughed. Pretty soon everyone was asking to get a shot at shooting each other with the super soakers. Pietro couldn’t be entirely sure if it was because they genuinely wanted to simulate what being hit with a bullet felt like or if the alcohol had already started to work on them, either way, it wasn’t long before everyone in the bar was ducking for cover as the super soakers were passed from person to person.

Somehow, Pietro found himself ducked beneath a booth with Bruce and Maria. “If we get banned from here I’m coming after you with a super soaker filled with ice water.” Bruce laughed. “This place has the best hot wings in town and I don’t wanna miss out on them.”

“Don’t worry, I think the guy who owns this place is just happy that someone actually gives him business during the week.” Maria followed.

“HEY DARCY,” Tony’s voice called across the bar, “WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD CALL THIS ONE?”

“THE GREAT BATTLE OF YESTERDAY’S!” the theater teacher replied as she took a shot at Natasha’s butt. “BULLSEYE!”

“Gimme that!” Natasha grabbed the other gun from the young blond teacher who was hiding behind a table with Peter and the young black teacher. “All those in favor of ‘The Great Battle of Yesterday’s’ say ‘aye’!” Nat called out. The bar was filled with a unanimous ‘Aye!’ just before Natasha took a shot at Darcy’s boob.

“How do you like them apples Lewis?!”

Pietro dove back into the madness and snatched the gun from Darcy, shooting at random across the bar. Sure him and everyone in the sleaziest bar known to man were going to go home smelling like the back room at a college party, but if shooting beer at his co-workers was something that could make a day like today infinitely better, then dammit, he’d take a beer bullet to the crotch everyday if he had to.

* * *

 

After working with people like Tony and Darcy for years and Pietro for a month, one would think Sam would have gotten used to things such as tardiness, messes, and just general loudness. Hell, he thought that working with elementary kids for six years out of grad school would have given him a high tolerance for those kinds of things. But like an itch that can’t be scratched, all of those pet peeves still burned him up from the inside out. Sure, he’d gotten used to it from students, his co-workers, and children under the age of ten, but he would never quite get used to it from grown ass adults.

He glanced back at his wristwatch, the hour hand was creeping closer and closer to five o’clock, this parent teacher conference was supposed to start at four thirty. He should have expected this though, this wasn’t his first meeting with the Quenten family.

“Are they usually this late?” Wanda asked beside him.

“In the many conferences I’ve had the misfortune of doing with them, yes.” he replied.

Wanda let out an irritated groan. “I could be at home watching...something. Anything would be better than this.”

He let out a chuckle. “You can say that again.”

Wanda muttered something that sounded rather bitter in Italian. “Is Stark still here at least? If I’m going to sit through this then I at least need some coffee.”

Before Sam could answer her, there was a knock on his office door. Wanda said something again in Italian, somehow sounding more irritated than her previous comment. Sam made a quick mental note to add Italian to one of his many courses in Duolingo, before rising from his desk chair and opening the door to let the inevitable conference begin. He slapped an expression on his face that was something other than pure bitterness and irritation and greeted the head honchos of the Quenten family.

“Hi, I’m sure you both remember who I am.” Sam started, stepping out of the doorway to allow Alec and his parents to shuffle into the cramped office and get settled into the three chairs he had to dig out of the storage room after work.

“Yeah, you’re Fury, right?” Mr.Quenten asked.

Sam bit down on his tongue to trap the rude response that was tempted to leave him. It was bad enough that people always confused him with that one movie star from The Hurt Locker, but dealing with bigoted parents who couldn’t tell the difference between the few black guys at the school was enough to make Sam consider quitting. One would think that after practically being in his office every other afternoon last year would have drilled his image and name into their brains, but he had no such luck.

“No, for the millionth time, I’m Samuel Wilson, your son’s guidance counselor.” he said sternly.

Mr.Quenten grunted, clearly not taking Sam’s correction into consideration. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with, I’ve got better things to do.”

Maybe if you’d gotten here on time we all would’ve been out of here by now. Sam thought bitterly. He scooted past Wanda and sat back down into his own chair. “Now I’m assuming that the both of you have a clear understanding of why we’ve had to call this conference today.” Sam started.

“Something about some girl getting offended over something my son said.” Mr.Quenten said.

Sam saw Wanda shift uncomfortably in the chair next to him, and he could understand why. Mr.Quenten’s wording made it clear that the next twenty to thirty minutes were going to be a painful back and forth of trying to explain why Alec’s actions were wrong.

“That’s the basis of this situation, but it goes so much deeper than a few poorly exchanged words.” Sam continued. “You see, what Alec said was a word that none of the teachers or staff here tolerate, and his behavior needs to be addressed.”

Sam paused, waiting to see if either of Alec’s parents would have anything to say, as most parents usually would at this point. Surely enough, Mr.Quenten jumped to his son’s defense in a heartbeat, not giving Sam so much time as to blink.

“Listen, none of us want to be in this situation, and I have somewhere to be in about an hour, so can’t you just give him Saturday detention and let this whole thing blow over?”

“We already gave him in-school-suspension for three days and now we have to deal with the actual problem.” Wanda spoke up.

Mr.Quenten cut his eyes at Wanda, almost as if this were the first time he’d noticed her presence in the room. “And who the hell are you?” he asked rudely.

Sam saw her jaw tighten at his question. “I’m Ms.Maximoff, Alec’s art teacher. We spoke on the phone not too long ago, in fact it was about an hour ago.”

“So you’re the reason we had to come to this conference?”

“Actually no, your son’s behavior is the reason for this situation.” Wanda replied curtly.

“You better watch your mouth lady.” Mrs.Quenten cut in. “I’m not another one of your students and I’m not going to just sit here while you talk about my son like that.”

“Well maybe if he was raised to have respect for others at home, none of us would have to worry about trying to teach him manners that should’ve been taught at home ages ago.” Sam snapped.

An uneasy silence fell over the adults in the room. Alec, on the other hand, was staring at Sam in a state of shock. Sam knew that he shouldn’t have lost his temper like that, but the situation was getting out of hand and everyone’s ego coming into the mix wasn’t going to help in the least. Regardless of how his outburst made anyone feel, he continued on without apologizing or so much as letting up from his argument.

“You two act like your sons are some perfect angels, but the truth is they’re not, especially not Alec.” Sam continued.

“You better tread lightly boy.” Mr.Quenten fumed.

“I’m not a boy and it’s Mr.Wilson.”

“Well then Mr.Wilson, I’m not going to sit here and listen to you drag my son through the mud.” Mr.Quenten got up from his chair so quickly that it was almost knocked backwards into the bookshelf. “Get up, the both of you. I’ve got better shit to do than sit here and listen to some underpaid shrink and Ms.Frizzle tell me how to raise my kids.”

This situation was not going as Sam had hoped it would have gone. Well this definitely beats the conference before graduation. Sam knew that if he couldn’t talk Mr.Quenten back into listening to reason, things would most surely escalate to a meeting with the hearing board, something he desperately wanted to avoid.

Apologizing was out of the question, Sam was too proud and too fed up with Quenten’s attitude and comments to bend over backwards just to make him feel comfortable. It was his job to make sure that Alec not only learn from his actions, but get it through his parents head that their son was harming other students and that they weren’t going to tolerate the Quenten’s reign of terror over teachers and students for another four years.

Sam rose from his seat to meet Mr.Quenten’s gaze. “Mr.Quenten, if you don’t sit down then this I’m afraid that I’ll have no other choice but to schedule a meeting with Principal Fury.” Sam said firmly, but not aggressively. “And if that isn’t enough for you, then we’ll take it to the hearing board where Alec will most likely be expelled only a month into the school year, and I’m sure that neither you nor Mrs.Quenten wouldn’t want that, would you?”

The entire Quenten trio was looking at Sam with nothing but unmitigated anger and frustration. For just a small second however, Sam was sure he saw Alec’s expression falter at the mention of being expelled, but before he could be sure, Mr.Quenten came back full force.

“Well then, I guess that’s just what we’ll have to do.” he spat. “Cause my son has rights to be here no matter what he’s done and I’m not going to let you take that away from him.” He yanked the door open and stomped out into the  main office. When Mrs.Quenten trailed out behind Alec, she slammed the door so hard that the framed picture of Sam’s parents toppled over on his desk.

Sam waited until he heard the tell tale sound of the main office door swinging open and shut before screaming out in frustration. “I cannot stand that fucking family!” he shouted. “Of all the racist, homophobes in this goddamn world, we had to get stuck with the ones with a stick shoved up their ass and an ego bigger than Stark’s!” He dropped back down into his chair, letting out a long sigh as he did so.

“I thought everyone was joking when they said his parents are literal heathens.” Wanda spoke up. “At least now I know that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and that he’s not just awful on his own.”

“I wish I knew a way to get this kid out of our school.” Sam said.

“We could always wait it out and hope he gets into a fight and gets himself suspended.” Wanda said.

Sam allowed himself a little laugh. The image of Alec trying to fight was a bit funny. The kid couldn’t have been more than one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet and wasn’t as tall as his brother was. If he were to fight someone and win, it would probably be in an arm wrestling match with Tyrion Lannister.

“That’d be the quickest route without too much argument from his hellion parents.”

“I’m sure they’d find a way to weasel their way into that too.” Wanda laughed.

The pair let out a unanimous sigh, half relieved and half frustrated at the failed conference. Sam glanced down at his wristwatch, it was just past four forty-five. Too late to convince himself that he’d get any work done but still too early to call it a day and head home.

He looked over at Wanda who was slumped down in her chair looking rather downtrodden. “It’s still happy hour at Yesterday’s.” he started. “And I’m sure that mostly everyone will still be there. Wanna go for a few rounds?”

“Sure. Alcohol is the only logical solution after all that shit.” Wanda said.

“Alcohol is the only logical solution to deal with this job.” Sam laughed.

They left the office and made their way out to the staff parking lot. As Sam drove alone in his car with Wanda trailing behind him, he couldn’t help but be grateful for the tiny shred of goodness that had come out of the parent-teacher conference from hell. Sure nothing had been resolved and the Quenten's were sure to come back full force whenever Sam would schedule a meeting with Fury for, but at least now he was getting to go drink himself under a table with his friends and forget about the fact that he had to put up with the Quenten’s shit for at best another nine months.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been through hell to get this thing posted (my laptop deleted the file twice and i had to retype the whole thing). sorry for it being so long, but i write until everything that needs to be said is said. the second chapter is in the works and i will try to have it posted in the next two weeks or so. just gonna go ahead and say that come mid-august, updates will probably become more and more spaced out because i will be starting my freshman year of college. if you want to talk to me outside of the comments (i am lousy at keeping up with them), shoot me a message on my tumblr at coeranus.tumblr.com or if you're feeling lucky, email me at sayh3y@gmail.com (you'll have better luck with my email since i'm away from home frequently).  
> please enjoy and critique me or give me ideas for one shots! i can only improve if i get tips on how to!


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